Background

non-suicidal self-harm has been considered a public and social health problem during the last decade, which affects adolescents to a greater extent. Generalized anxiety and bullying can be trigger factors for its development.

Objective

to analyze a generalized anxiety and bullying explanatory model as non-suicidal self-harm predictors in Peruvian adolescents.

Methods

cross-sectional, explanatory design study, with 1,249 Peruvian adolescents, average age 15 years old (standard deviation = 1.49), who answered scales on generalized anxiety, bullying, and non-suicidal self-harm. For data analysis, statistical power, correlation, and a structural regression model based on covariances were applied to confirm the explanatory model.

Results

the psychological variables were positively and statistically significantly correlated. The proposed model had adequate fit indices (CFI = 0.94; RMSEA = 0.03 [90% CI: 0.02-0.03] and SRMR = 0.04) and it was evidenced that generalized anxiety (β = 0.26, p = 0.001) and bullying dimensions such as aggression (β = 0.25, p = 0.001) and victimization (β = 0.21, p = 0.003) statistically significantly predicted self-harm not suicidal.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that both generalized anxiety and bullying predict non suicidal self-harm in adolescents. The evidence provides useful information for developing and evaluating prevention programs based on these psychological variables, to reduce the non-suicidal self-harm risks.

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