New brief screening tool enhances early detection of adolescent self-injury in schools

A novel short questionnaire, the ANSSI-SF, shows promise for quick and reliable identification of self-injurious behaviour among adolescents, aiding early intervention efforts in educational settings.

A new short screening tool may help schools and researchers identify adolescent non-suicidal self-injury more quickly, according to a study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry. The Adolescent Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Scale-Short Form, or ANSSI-SF, was designed to keep the breadth of the longer Chinese Adolescent Self-Harm Questionnaire while cutting administration time, a trade-off the authors say is important for large-scale screening and early support.

In the study, the researchers worked with a convenience sample of 1,090 primary and secondary school pupils. They used classical test theory, a standard method for examining how well questionnaire items perform, alongside a genetic algorithm, a computer-based selection technique, to choose seven questions that each represented one of seven behavioural categories of self-injury. The result was a brief scale intended to preserve coverage of the full range of self-injurious behaviour rather than narrowing attention to only one aspect of it.

The authors report that the short form showed strong internal consistency and split-half reliability, meaning the items moved together in a stable way. An exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported a single underlying dimension, suggesting the scale measures one broad construct rather than several unrelated ones. Scores on the ANSSI-SF were also positively associated with depression, anxiety and sleep problems, and the tool distinguished between groups defined by sex and smartphone addiction, which the researchers present as further evidence that it is capturing meaningful differences in risk.

The paper arrives at a time when there is growing interest in faster ways to detect self-harm risk in adolescents. A separate systematic review and meta-analysis on machine-learning approaches to adolescent non-suicidal self-injury found the behaviour is common and that better screening tools are needed in both clinical and public health settings. Other recent studies have explored multi-omics and EEG-based prediction models, pointing to a broader scientific push to improve risk detection with both biological markers and digital methods. Against that backdrop, the ANSSI-SF offers a more practical, questionnaire-based option for schools and services that need a brief tool for rapid screening. The authors note, however, that their sample came from a single region and that the scale still needs testing in clinical and culturally diverse groups, as well as checks on whether it can predict future risk.