Alarming new research has found there were 18,223 self-harm hospitalisations of children aged 6-16 years between July 2001 and June 2012.

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Lead author, Macquarie’s Associate Professor Rebecca Mitchell, is calling for a ‘long overdue’ national strategy.

“Injury prevention has been a priority area in Australia for 30 years,” Rebecca says. However, she explains that the last national injury prevention strategy expired in 2014.

“Intentional injury often affects vulnerable groups in society. While assault hospitalisations are decreasing, children who were injured who were the subject of care and protection orders continue to rise in Australia. Having accurate and timely information is essential to monitor child injury hospitalisations and also to evaluate intentional injury prevention initiatives.”

The facts

Published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, this is the largest study of its kind.

Results show that females had the highest self-harm hospitalisation rate (100.4 per 100,000) over the 10-year period. While the female self-harm hospitalisation rate was four times higher than that of males (21.4 per 100,000), the male rate was still increasing by 2.5 per cent per year during the time period.

There were 13,877 assault hospitalisations over the period, with males treated for assault-related injuries at more than twice the rate (40.5 per 100,000) of females (18.7 per 100,000). Although, the hospitalisation rate for assault injuries was decreasing by 4.2 per cent each year during the study period. The highest proportion of assault injuries occurring in children aged between 11-16 years (74.3 per cent).

The estimated hospital treatment costs for self-harm and assault injury treatment was $64 million and $60.6 million respectively during the 10-year period.

Assailants of younger children were most commonly parents or caregivers or other family members, and for children aged 11-16 years it was an acquaintance or unknown person.