Dear Editor,
Recently, Plener et al. (1) have reviewed the literature on non-suicidal self-injury (self-harm) in adolescents, with a particular focus on the German context. In addition, some research on non-suicidal self-injury, conducted among German-speaking participants in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland (2-4), has operationalised self-harm using the German translation (2, 5) of the Ottawa Self-injury Inventory version 3.1 (OSI 3.1) (6, 7). Recently four newly developed items have been added to the Addictive Features section of the OSI 3.1 (8).
In addition to the German translation (2, 5), the OSI 3.1 (6, 7) has been translated into several languages, including Mandarin Chinese (9), French (7, 10), Hebrew (11), Turkish (12), Hungarian (13), Russian (14), and Albanian (15). Given this, these four newly developed items in the Addictive Features section (8) have now been translated into Hungarian (16), Turkish (17), Russian (18), and Urdu (19). Therefore, the aim was to complement the German translation of the OSI 3.1 (2, 5) by converting these newly developed items (8) into German.
The four newly-developed items (8) were translated from English into German and back-translated by two experienced bi-lingual Austrian and German academics with expertise in clinical and health psychology. No issues were raised by the translators. Both the English and German translations of the four newly-developed items are presented in Table 1.
| “Never a Reason” (Niemals ein Grund) | “Always a Reason” (Immer ein Grund) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8. Self-harming behaviours seem to stabilise your mood. (Selbstverletzendes Verhalten scheint Deine Laune zu stabilisieren.) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 9. When ceasing self-harm behaviour, you feel strong emotion(s) such as tense, anxious, morose, guilty, irate, temperamental, agitated, or irritable. (Beim Aufhören der Selbstverletzung fühlst Du starke Emotionen, wie Angespanntheit, Ängstlichkeit, Mürrischkeit, Schuldgefühle, Wut, Launenhaftigkeit, Erregtheit, oder Gereiztheit.) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 10. There is the urge to self-harm and the self-inflicted pain creates a “high”. (Es besteht der Drang zur Selbstverletzung und der selbstverschuldete Schmerz verursacht ein “Hoch”.) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 11. You lose control of the behaviour. (Du verlierst die Kontrolle über das Verhalten.) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
English and German Versions of the Four Additional Items for the Addictive Features Section of the Ottawa Self-injury Inventory Version 3.1.
If this extended version of the OSI 3.1 is found to be reliable and valid this will enable self-harm research among German speakers, particularly on self-harm addiction.
