Teenage 'goths' are four times more likely to self-harm

Teenage goths are more likely to self-harm than any other youth culture group, a study has found.

Rates of self-harm among goths under the age of 19 are almost four times higher than for other young people of the same age.

The research, published in the British Medical Journal, found that teenagers who identified themselves as indie fans were the least likely to hurt themselves, with only 0.3 per cent admitting to the problem.

More than half - 53 per cent - of goths said they had deliberately self-harmed, compared to an estimated average of 14 per cent among all young people.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow interviewed 1,258 youngsters aged between 13 and 19 and asked them about the youth sub-culture they most identified with, as well as questions about whether they had self-harmed.

Eight out of the 15 people who identified with the goth culture, distinctive for its black clothes and dark music, said they had self-harmed. The next highest finding was among teenage punks, of whom 24 per cent had deliberately hurt themselves. Fans of pop, indie, retro and grunge had the lowest rates of self-harm, while one in five heavy metal teens admitted to cutting or hurting themselves in some other way.