Self-harm among young Canadians is on the rise, specifically in girls, new research finds

WARNING: This story contains details about self-harm and suicide.

For three years, Margaret Boldt was hurting herself to feel some type of control over her life. 

Boldt, who lives in Windsor, Ont., says she grew up in an abusive household and struggled with an eating disorder. At 16, she says she started to cut herself. 

"In the beginning, I almost wanted people to notice, because I wanted them to know how much I was really struggling," she said. "When it became more of an addiction, then I started hiding it more." 

But the cuts became so severe that she was eventually going to the hospital "every other day, if not every day some weeks" for stitches. 

She then started using drugs, as she found that being high kept her from cutting herself.

Now at 20 years old, Boldt says she hasn’t hurt herself in five months and is currently in a substance use recovery program. 

Boldt is part of a growing number of young people who are turning to self-harm in Canada, according to new research published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics. 

On average, the rate of self-harm for people aged 24 and younger who were medically treated for it increased by 3.5 per cent each year between 2000 and 2024 — meaning it more than doubled over the 25-year study period, said lead author Dr. Natasha Saunders.

In 2000, Saunders’s research points out, there was an average of 10.2 self-harm medical visits per 10,000 people. Over the years, that rate grew. The increase was steepest among girls, at 3.6 per cent annually, compared to 1.2 per cent a year for boys. 

"It says to us that our kids are not doing well, and if we don't put the brakes on and put things in place to stop this trajectory, we're in real trouble," she said.

When the authors looked at research on self-reported self-harm, they found a 2.5 per cent yearly increase across both girls and boys.

"This is what we’re seeing on the ground — I see it in my practice, at the hospital; we see it on the pediatrics wards," said Saunders, who is also a pediatrician at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. However, she said, the trends' magnitude surprised her. 

Saunders says they found a similar upward trend across all of the countries that they looked at.