Citation

Wong WH, Lee JC, Ho FK, Li TM, Ip P, Chow CB. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017; 14(6): e14060623.

Affiliation

Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. chowcb@hku.hk.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph14060623

PMID

28598378

Abstract

Although a few studies investigated the impact of stock market fluctuations on population health, the question of whether stock market fluctuations have an impact on self-harm in children and adolescents remain unanswered. This study therefore investigated the association between stock market fluctuations and self-harm among children and adolescents in Hong Kong. Daily self-harm attendance records were retrieved from all 18 local Accident and Emergency Departments (AED) from 2001 to 2012. 4931 children and adolescents who committed self-harm were included. The results indicated positive correlation between daily change in stock market index, Hang Seng Index (∇HSI, per 300 points), and daily self-harm incident risk of children and adolescents, without time lag between the two. The incident risk ratio for ∇HSI was 1.09 (p = 0.0339) in children and 1.06 (p = 0.0246) in adolescents. Importantly, non-trading days were found to impose significant protective effect in both groups against self-harm risk. Our results showed that stock market fluctuations were related to self-harm behaviors in children and adolescents. Parents and professionals should be educated about the potential harm of stock market fluctuations and the importance of effective parenting in reducing self-harm among children and adolescents.

Language: en

Keywords

Hong Kong children; self-harm; stock market