Resilience in young people living with violence and self-harm: evidence from a Norwegian national youth survey

Abstract

Lihong Huang,1 Svein Mossige2 1NOVA – Norwegian Social Research, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, 2Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Abstract: The aim of this article is to explore the relationship between resilience and the psychological problems of young people who reported being victims of violence and who engaged in self-harm. We used data from a national survey conducted in 2007 asking young people in Norway (N=6,034; ages 18–19 years) about their experiences with violence during their childhood and during the past 12 months, and also about their mental health and experiences of self-harm. Our analyses revealed that resilience, as measured by the Resilience Scale for Adolescents, correlates significantly and negatively with psychological problems among all young people, and that this correlation is substantially stronger for those youths who reported violent experiences and those who engaged in self-harm. Keywords: resilience, self-harm, violence, psychological problem