Why stop self-injuring? Development of the reasons to stop self-injury questionnaire.
The 40-item RSSIQ sorts clients’ quit motives into protective or risky buckets and predicts future self-injury severity.
01Research in Context
What this study did
McGonigle et al. (2014) built a new 40-item survey called the Reasons to Stop Self-Injury Questionnaire (RSSIQ).
They asked people who had hurt themselves without wanting to die why they wanted to quit.
The team checked if the answers grouped into clear themes and if those themes predicted future self-injury.
What they found
Two main themes emerged: resiliency motives (hope, support) and vulnerability motives (psychopathology).
People who scored high on resiliency motives were less likely to self-injure later.
People who scored high on vulnerability motives had more severe self-injury later.
How this fits with other research
Goodwin et al. (2012) had earlier shown that definitions of self-injury vary widely. The RSSIQ gives clinicians a shared yardstick for measuring motives, filling a gap L et al. highlighted.
Iwata et al. (1990) created the SIT Scale to count tissue damage. The RSSIQ adds a second piece: it tells you why the client wants to stop, not just how badly they are hurt.
Rana et al. (2024) introduced a five-minute screen for NSSI-by-proxy. Pair their quick proxy screener with the RSSIQ to get both behavior type and quit motives in one intake packet.
Why it matters
You can hand the RSSIQ to any teen or adult who self-injures and see in minutes if their reasons to stop are protective or risky. Use high resiliency scores to build on strengths. Use high vulnerability scores to target emotion-regulation skills first.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We developed a measure of reasons to refrain from nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), the Reasons to Stop Self-Injury Questionnaire (RSSIQ), and examined how such reasons are associated with vulnerability versus resiliency for NSSI. Following qualitative item generation, we explored the factor structure, reliability, and convergent validity of the RSSIQ in 218 self-injuring undergraduates. In Study 2, we confirmed the hierarchical factor structure in 146 self-injuring individuals. In Study 3, we examined the incremental predictive validity of the RSSIQ. These studies resulted in a 40-item inventory with nine subscales and two higher-order factors. Resiliency-related reasons to stop NSSI were associated with greater hopefulness, social support, and adaptive coping, and prospectively protected against NSSI 3 months later, while vulnerability-related reasons were associated with greater psychopathology and dysfunctional coping, and predicted more chronic and severe NSSI. These studies, and the RSSIQ, can enhance the assessment and treatment of NSSI by clarifying motivations to stop NSSI.
Behavior modification, 2014 · doi:10.1177/0145445513508977