Background: Data from the US and the UK have pointed to increasing rates of self-harm and suicidal thoughts in pre-adolescents in recent years. However, much of these data involve help-seeking children. Data from community settings, where most of self-harm in this age group occurs, are sparse.
Aims: (1) To estimate the prevalence of self-harm (intentional self-injury or self-poisoning, regardless of motivation) in a community-based sample of primary school children in England; (2) To examine characteristics of children who self-harm; and (3) To explore reasons for partial response to self-harm questions.
Methods: 8681 primary school children attending school years 5 (50.5%) and 6 (49.5%) from the OxWell School Survey: 48.5% females, 46.7% males and 4.8% declined to indicate their gender. The vast majority of children were 9-11 years at the time of the survey: 9 years (20.1%), 10 years (49%) and 11 years (26.9%). Past year self-harm was ascertained using two items, a structured item and a follow-up open-ended item whereby respondents were asked to provide information about their self-harm method(s). Students who declined to provide response to the latter were asked about the reason/s.
Preliminary results: 1622 (18.7%) endorsed the first item. Of those children, 667 (41%) provided a description of their act, 463 (28.6%) of whom described acts which were self-harm, 103 (6.4%) were not acts of self-harm, and for 101 (6.2%) the information provided was unclear. In the majority of cases (955; 58.9%), children provided no further information about their act. Reasons for declining to provide a description of their act included refusing to share (36.2%), not feeling safe to share (13.7%), not remembering what they had done (10.7%), finding it difficult to write (5.9%) and other (11.2%). Thus, at least 463 (6%) of the total sample had self-harmed in the year before the survey. Analysis is underway. Complete results will be available at the time of presentation and conclusions amended accordingly.

Conclusions: At least 6% of children aged 9-11 years self-harmed in the year that preceded the survey. This is likely an under-estimate of the true prevalence of self-harm in this age group. Accurately ascertaining self-harm in children in the community remains a challenge. Further work is needed to explore children's understanding of self-harm and barriers to response provision to help refine our method of self-harm case-ascertainment.