Psychological well-being, resilience and non suicidal self-harm among adolescent females

Pages: 380-384
Ridhima Shukla (Amity Institute of Behavioural and Allied Sciences, Amity University Lucknow Campus, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh)

Adolescent females experience widespread changes during their puberty. Their perceptions about their overall psychological well-being are found to be associated with happiness and positive affect. It is also hypothesized that the individuals who have better psychological well-being will be more resilient in nature. Such individuals will indulge in healthy behaviors in dealing with daily life hassles. Adolescents are bound to experience difficulty in their lives and in such incidents they may indulge into abusive unhealthy behaviors. The present was, therefore, undertaken to ascertain the level of psychological well-being, resilience and non suicidal self harm behaviors of adolescent females and also to determine the relationship among the three variables. The study also purported to assess the frequent types of self harm behaviors adolescent females indulge into. The sample was incidentally selected and comprised of 200 adolescent females falling in the age range of 16-18 years. The data was collected with the help of psychometric tools, namely, Psychological Well Being Questionnaire by Bhogle and Jaiprakash (1995); The Resilience Scale by Wagnild and Young (1993); and Inventory of Statements About Self-injury (ISAS)’ by Klonsky and Olino (2008). Results revealed that adolescent females have better psychological well-being and are highly resilient. They indulge in self harm behaviors because they think that it helps them in regulating their affect, gives them thrill and a sense of autonomy. They also were found to get a sense of revenge when they indulge in non suicidal self harm. 78% adolescent females have reported that have harmed themselves at least once in their lifetime and approximately 44% reported that they experienced pain during such incidents. Surprisingly, 85% of the females reported that they want to stop such behaviors. This definitely indicates that they are well aware of the consequences of such behaviors. The study has implications in the form of developing interventions to help adolescent females abstain from indulging in such behaviors.