Screening for Adolescent Self-Injury: A Survey of Ohio Advanced Practice Nurses

The purpose of this article is to describe Advance Practice Nurses' (APN) clinical practice of screening and managing adolescent intentional self-harm. A random sample of 250 APNs was mailed a questionnaire to obtain clinical practice information on the topic. Analysis of the returned questionnaires revealed 3 themes: the majority of APNs do see many adolescents who intentionally self-harm; not all APNs screen for this behavior, but the number of adolescents who self-harm increases with purposeful screening; and APNs identified a need for more education about self-harm behaviors. Implications of these findings are discussed.