BMJ  2006;332:1335 (3 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7553.1335-a

Letter

Self harm in Goth youth subculture: authors' reply

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Our paper generated varied comments.1 The definition of "Goth" is contentious but covers a wide range of musical tastes, social groupings, and aesthetics.2 Our paper, as is clear from the title, refers to younger Goths; the results may not apply to all Goths.

Our contribution is a first step towards producing an evidence base to test the hypothesis that engagement with Goth subculture could have positive rather than negative consequences for some young people, rather than relying on media speculation.

Some contributors have suggested that the association between self harm and Goth subculture may be accounted for by other factors. This is unlikely, since we adjusted for the strongest and most relevant correlates of self harm found in other studies of young people. Others have said that our results were not valid because of the small numbers involved. Our paper underwent a formal statistical review before publication. Furthermore, . . . [Full text of this article]

Robert Young, research associate

robert@msoc.mrc.gla.ac.uk, MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RZ

Helen Sweeting, research scientist, Patrick West, senior research scientist

MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RZ


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