Chloe Hamza

• Ph.D.
• Professor at University of Toronto, OISE

Objectives Emerging evidence suggests that alexithymia, a psychological construct defined by the inability to describe emotion, differentiate feelings, and think in an internally oriented way, may be relevant in understanding engagement in nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI). However, there is a paucity of longitudinal work on alexithymia and NSSI, whic...

Bien qu’ils soient davantage confrontés à des problèmes de santé mentale, les étudiants racialisés de l’enseignement postsecondaire ont moins souvent accès à des services de soutien sur le campus que leurs camarades blancs. Une grande partie de la recherche existante concernant la recherche de soutien par les étudiants racialisés dans les établisse...

Emerging adults (ages 18–29 years) in post-secondary school experience significant disruptions in sleep and increased vulnerability to mental health challenges. One burgeoning mental health concern that may be exacerbated by poor sleep is nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). Prior cross-sectional studies have shown that poor sleep is commonly reported a...

Objective: Evidence suggests young adults in post-secondary school experienced increased distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, but students' experiences likely varied. Effects may have also changed over time as students adapted. This study examined the mental health of students with and without preexisting health conditions at two points during th...

Although social media provides a crucial platform for self-development in emerging adulthood, the link between online self-presentation and mental health outcomes remains unclear. Thus, the associations among real self, ideal self, different types of false self-presentations, and depressive symptoms were examined over time (T1–T3) in the present st...

Mindfulness instruction comprising both formal (FM) and informal (IM) mindfulness practice is increasingly offered to university students. FM involves sustaining attention on thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations through structured practices, while IM involves incorporating mindfulness into daily activities. However, recent evidence suggests tha...

Previous research on parent‒child relationships has focused more extensively on younger, school-aged children and adolescents, with mothers receiving more attention than fathers. In addition, there has been a greater focus on problematic parenting (e.g., helicopter parenting) and less research on supportive forms of parenting that can promote posit...

Emerging adulthood (ages 18–25 years) is a period of increased vulnerability for mental health challenges. A potential protective factor is self-compassion, which is thought to promote better mental health through healthier emotion regulation capacities. However, longitudinal research on the associations among self-compassion, emotion regulation, a...

Exposure to stressors is known to lead to psychological impairment over time. However, the proximal relation between stressors and distress remains unclear, particularly among emerging adults with existing mental health concerns. Using daily diary methods, we explored the associations between five subtypes of daily stressors and negative affect amo...

Research on exposure to stressors and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) in daily life has been lacking, particularly among emerging adults (aged 18–25 years). The aim of this study was to determine whether daily stressors predicted same-day and next-day NSSI thoughts and engagement, and whether emotion dysregulation moderated this relation. Participan...

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is defined as the deliberate destruction of one’s bodily tissue without suicidal intent. Mindfulness practice is commonly incorporated into universities’ stress management programming and may benefit students with a history of NSSI. However, recent findings suggest that these students may respond differentially to spe...

Objective: There is a lack of research examining factors that promote the disclosure of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) among post-secondary students. However, elucidating which factors facilitate disclosures among students - particularly students with high risk NSSI - is important given that disclosure may facilitate access to care. Methods: Partic...

Emerging adulthood (ages 18–25) is a period of identity exploration, particularly for young adults navigating the transition to post-secondary school. Little is known about how changes in identity exploration may be related to emerging adults’ mental health, or the role of social support plays in identity-related processes. In the present study, as...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook; however, the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook; however, the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook; however, the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

This prospective longitudinal study measured sex-specific changes in depression, anxiety, and stress scores using, validated Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) in a cohort of 1445 post-secondary students (500 males, 945 females) assessed at three time points from Dece...

Nonsuicidal self-injury is a burgeoning mental health concern amongst post-secondary students. In the present study, the link between posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) was examined among post-secondary students over time, while accounting for the role of co-occurring depressive symptoms. Participants were 841 f...

The early post-secondary years are regarded as a period of heightened vulnerability for stress and internalizing symptoms among emerging adults. However, there is a lack of research examining variability in stress and internalizing symptoms among students, the co-occurrence of stress and internalizing symptoms, or predictors of distinct profiles of...

Background: Mindfulness-based programming comprising both formal (FM) and informal (IM) mindfulness practice is increasingly offered to university students. However, difficulties with emotion regulation, self-criticism, and a potentially complex relationship with their body may undermine the benefits of FM for students with a history of nonsuicida...

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a frequently occurring mental health concern among emerging adults in university, but one that is often concealed. Given that the disclosure of NSSI can provide opportunities to receive support, promoting positive disclosure experiences for students is important. However, the experiences of disclosing for both disc...

Mounting evidence suggests that individuals who engage in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) have lower pain sensitivity (e.g., pain thresholds and tolerances) than individuals without a history of NSSI. However, research has been largely cross-sectional, so it is unclear whether low pain sensitivity may increase risk for NSSI, or whether NSSI diminish...

Evidence suggests that post-secondary students without pre-existing mental health concerns may have experienced worsening mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, relative to students with pre-existing mental health concerns. To clarify the psychological impacts of the pandemic, and elucidate why differences may exist among students, 20 intervie...

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) has emerged as a common and serious concern in school settings. Up to one in five students report having self-injured and continued NSSI engagement is associated with a multitude of mental health difficulties. Moreover, NSSI uniquely and significantly exacerbates the risk of death by suicide. Despite this, many school...

Studies have outlined the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic to psychological health. However, the potential within-individual diversity of experiences during COVID-19, and how such experiences relate to indices of psychological distress and COVID-19-specific stressors, remains to be explored. A large online sample of American MTurk Wor...

Objective There is a paucity of longitudinal research on predictors of disclosures of nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) among emerging adults. However, understanding the factors that facilitate disclosure is critical, as disclosure may serve as a first step in accessing care. To address this gap, the present study examined predictors of prospective NS...

Objective Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a commonly occurring, yet historically poorly understood, mental health concern among post-secondary students. The present study sought to identify the current knowledge needs of university stakeholders to inform training efforts around effective NSSI response and student support on university campuses....

Many emerging adults report experiencing mental health challenges (e.g., depressive symptoms and perceived stress) during the transition to university. These mental health challenges often coincide with increased engagement in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI; e.g., self-cutting or burning without lethal intent), but longitudinal research exploring th...

Theoretical perspectives on non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI; direct and deliberate self-injury without lethal intent such as self-cutting or hitting) have long underscored the affective regulating properties of NSSI. Less attention has been given to the processes through which individuals choose to engage in NSSI, specifically, to regulate their dis...

La pandémie mondiale du coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) a eu un impact sans précédent sur les campus universitaires et collégiaux à l’échelle internationale (p. ex., fermetures de campus généralisées, transition vers l’apprentissage en ligne). Les étudiants de niveau postsecondaire, qui forment déjà une population vulnérable sur le plan développemental...

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is defined as the deliberate, self-inflicted damage of body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially or culturally sanctioned. School nurses are often a first point of contact for young people experiencing mental health challenges, and yet they often report they lack knowledge and training to provi...

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is defined as the deliberate, self-inflicted damage of body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially or culturally sanctioned. School nurses are often a first point of contact for young people experiencing mental health challenges, and yet they often report they lack knowledge and training to provi...

Introduction Nonsuicidal self‐injury (e.g., self‐cutting without lethal intent) is a widely occurring behavior among adolescents and emerging adults. Heightened impulsivity during the adolescent and emerging adult years may contribute to an increased risk for nonsuicidal self‐injury onset and engagement during these developmental periods; however,...

Developmental theory on nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI; e.g., self-cutting without lethal intent) underscores that stressful life experiences may lead to heightened risk for NSSI, potentially by undermining individuals’ emotion coping capacities. Given that the transition to university is often accompanied by new stressors for emerging adults, it is...

Over the past several years, nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) has emerged as a widespread concern in school settings worldwide. However, despite significant strides in NSSI research, there remains a substantial knowledge gap with respect to what school staff know. Unfortunately, this can contribute to stigma and ineffective responding when working wi...

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a significant international mental health concern, with consequences for not only youth who self-injure, but for their entire family system. Helping caregivers respond productively to their child’s self-injury is a vital part of effectively addressing NSSI. This paper will assist school-based mental health practit...

Little research has examined potential risk factors for direct versus indirect self-injury among adolescents. To address this limitation, 541 clinically referred adolescents were assessed using the interRAI Child and Youth Mental Health Assessment. Logistic regression analyses revealed that older females who experienced heightened depressive sympto...

Background The Child and Youth Mental Health (ChYMH) assessment system was developed by interRAI (i.e., an international collective of researchers and clinicians from over thirty countries) in response to the unprecedented need for a coordinated approach to delivery of children’s mental health care. Many interRAI instruments are used across Canada...

Despite increased research on factors that predict engagement in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), one factor that has been neglected is spirituality/religiosity. While some researchers suggest that spiritual/religious beliefs and practice may protect against aversive mental health outcomes, it also is possible that certain aspects of spirituality/re...

Previous research linking school disruption with mental health problems has largely relied on assessments of academic achievement to measure school disruption. Early disruptive classroom behaviour (e.g., conflict with school staff, negative attitudes toward school), however, may precipitate poor academic performance and may stem from emerging menta...

Purpose: Although nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) has been differentiated from suicidal behavior on the basis of nonlethal intent in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, NSSI often is associated with increased suicidal risk. However, there is a paucity of large-scale longitudinal examinations on the associations among NSSI, su...

Background: Although exposure to direct forms of childhood maltreatment is among the most widely studied risk factors for nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), research on NSSI has largely overlooked the role of exposure to indirect forms of child maltreatment (i.e., witnessing domestic violence). To address this gap in the literature, the present study...

Despite recent findings that nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a strong predictor of suicide attempts, little empirical attention has been given to the mechanism through which NSSI increases suicide risk. The present 2-wave longitudinal study represents the first critical test of Joiner’s (2005) hypothesis that NSSI is linked to lower pain sensitiv...

Although research indicates that nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) may be used as a form of emotion regulation, studies have largely relied on the use of retrospective self-report data, which limits inferences about directionality of effects. Recently, researchers have started to employ lab-based experimental (e.g., guided imagery, acute pain) and mom...

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI; direct self-injury without lethal intent) often is thought to be associated with impulse control problems. Recent research, however, offers conflicting results about whether impulsivity is a risk factor for NSSI engagement. To disentangle findings on the link between impulsivity and NSSI, an extensive review of the li...

Despite the widespread prevalence of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) among community-based samples, little is known about which self-injurers disclose their NSSI or the factors that promote disclosure among self-injurers. To address this gap in the literature, we examined whether disclosers could be differentiated from nondisclosers on the basis of...

Despite recent findings that individuals who engage in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), have heightened tolerances for pain relative to noninjurers, little attention has been given to how self-injurers overcome the instinct to avoid the pain involved in NSSI. Understanding the process through which self-injurers are willing to tolerate pain, however...

In this special issue, Ernst (this issue) outlines the triadic systems model, which focuses on the balanced interaction among three functional neural systems: the prefrontal cortex (regulation/control), striatum (motivation/approach), and amygdala (emotion/avoidance). Asynchrony in maturation timelines, coupled with less mature connectivity across...

The adolescent age period is often characterized as a health paradox because it is a time of extensive increases in physical and mental capabilities, yet overall mortality/morbidity rates increase significantly from childhood to adolescence, often due to preventable causes such as risk taking. Asynchrony in developmental time courses between the af...

Little is known about the development and maintenance of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) over time; however, identifying individuals at risk for NSSI onset or its recurrent engagement is of critical importance for developing effective prevention and intervention strategies. To address this important gap in the literature, we used a person-centered a...

Although there is a general consensus among researchers that engagement in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is associated with increased risk for suicidal behavior, little attention has been given to whether suicidal risk varies among individuals engaging in NSSI. To identify individuals with a history of NSSI who are most at risk for suicidal behavi...

To examine whether individuals who engage in NSSI report different coping behaviors and regulatory needs compared to a non-injuring comparison group, we surveyed 1107 undergraduates using a Functions Index. Individuals who engaged in NSSI indicated greater use of coping behaviors for anti-dissociation, interpersonal influence, and self-punishment t...

Self-injurious behaviors (SIB) refer to behaviors that cause direct and deliberate harm to oneself, including nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), suicidal behaviors, and suicide. Although in recent research, NSSI and suicidal behavior have been differentiated by intention, frequency, and lethality of behavior, researchers have also shown that these two...

This longitudinal study investigated the importance of parental monitoring to the deterrence of adolescent problem behavior by examining bidirectional associations among perceived parental monitoring, adolescent disclosure and problem behaviors across the high school years. Adolescents (N = 2,941; 50.3% female) were surveyed each year from grades 9...

Parental monitoring has long been stressed as an important parenting practice in reducing adolescents' susceptibility to depressive symptoms. Reviews have revealed, however, that measures of monitoring have been confounded with parental knowledge, and that the role of adolescent disclosure has been neglected. In the present study, adolescents (N =...