Public Health Scotland self-harm data evaluation
Current status of data quality and completion

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) presents management information reviewing currently available data, data gaps and limitations on using health service attendance data related to self-harm in Scotland to drive improvements in prevention, support and service responses for adults and children who have self-harmed or are at risk of doing so.

Main points

• Currently, providing a robust national picture of service attendance related to self-harm is not possible due to data quality and gaps regarding the recording of self-harm in what would be considered key data sources such as A&E and hospital admissions.
• Improving data collection and analysis of service attendance outcomes with regard to self-harm in Scotland will require careful consideration of a number of factors, including but not limited to recording in A&E and hospital discharge systems.
• Areas of work recently completed or currently being carried out outside of Scotland, such as self-harm registers, health needs assessments and self-harm patient analysis present a number of possibilities when identifying approaches that can be taken to self-harm data collection and analysis.

Background

Supporting the Self-harm strategy and action plan 2023-2027: outcomes framework, this release covers previous self-harm service data explorations undertaken by Public Health Scotland (PHS), and previously Information Services Division (ISD), before reviewing currently available data sources and potential data developments within PHS. Examples of other approaches to obtaining and analysing self-harm data are then reviewed, highlighting recent and current work on the topic undertaken outside of Scotland.

Further information

There are no planned future releases for this publication.