First parents had to worry about the emotional fallout of One Direction splitting up. Now they have to fret about what subculture their teens belong to. A study in The Lancet Psychiatry shows that if your child is a committed goth, they are three times more likely to self-harm than other teenagers. Goths come in various forms but the Oxford Dictionary definition is: “A member of a subculture favouring black clothing, white and black makep, and goth music.”

This study used data on self-harm and depressive mood from 3,694 teenagers who are part of the UK Avon Longitudinal study of Parents and Children, which surveys its participants annually. At the age of 15, they were asked which social group they identified with (for example, sporty, keeners, skaters, populars, goths) and how strongly they did so. When they reached 18, they were assessed for depression and asked about self-harming. Those identifying as goths were more likely to be girls, have mothers with a history of depression, to have emotional problems themselves and to have been bullied, starting at junior school. Out of 154 people who identified strongly as goths, 18% had depression compared with only 6% of the 1,841 who did not see themselves as goths at all. About 37% of the goths reported self-harming. Self-harm rates among young people generally in the UK are estimated at between 7% and 14%. In this study, those who said they were sporty were the least likely to have depression and to have self-harmed (4% had depression and 6% had self-harmed). So should you be pushing your child to stop listening to The Damned with the curtains closed (does my age show?) and get outside and kick a football?

The solution

No teenager is going to abandon their subculture, even if you ask really nicely. This study replicates findings from a much smaller study in the British Medical Journal of Glasgow, showing that 12 out of 25 young goths had harmed themselves, although five had started before identifying as goths. Professor Lucy Bowes, the lead author of the Lancet Psychiatry paper, is keen to stress that most goths are perfectly happy and are not self-harming. Being a goth may indeed be protective because like minded people are drawn together and can support each other – stigmatising them further is not going to be helpful, she says. The study only shows an association between being a goth and self-harming and depression – it does not show that being a goth causes either. What the study does suggest is that goth teenagers may be a vulnerable sub-group who need more emotional support. Their friends and families should just keep a watchful eye on them.