Participating in an online study that includes detailed questions about self-injury does not appear to trigger such behavior, according to a new study published in Clinical Psychological Science.

“The results from this study support the notion that research participants are resilient and do not tend to experience distress or adverse reactions to participating in research on sensitive topics,” Jennifer J. Muehlenkamp and her colleagues wrote in their study. “Research ethics committees need to continue to be cautious about the potential for some participants to have mild negative reactions to online surveys about NSSI, but they must consider the growing evidence that participation in such studies seems to confer some significant benefits to participants as well.”

Recent studies have found that up to one-half of adolescents in the US have purposely harmed themselves without suicidal intent, a behavior called non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). This behavior is expressed in a variety of forms, including cutting, skin carving, burning, and punching.

But research on self-injury has been “hampered by the difficulties researchers face in securing ethics committee/institutional review board (IRB) approval because of fears” that such research will trigger or exacerbate the behavior being studied, according to Muehlenkamp and her colleagues.

For their study, the researchers recruited more than 800 students from a Midwestern university to participate in an online study about health-risk behaviors.

Half of the students completed a questionnaire that asked detailed questions about self-injury, while the other half did not see any questions pertaining to self-injury.

Overall, the participants did not report that either of the questionnaires produced distress. In fact, the researchers observed a reduction in distress and negative emotions from the beginning to the end of the study.

“These findings held true among those with a history of engaging in NSSI , which suggests that as a group, individuals with a history are at no greater risk for adverse psychological or emotional consequences due to research participation than are those without a history of NSSI,” the researchers noted.

The researchers found that urges to self-injure significantly decreased over the course of the study, even among those with a history of self-injury.

“However, a small percentage of participants did report engaging in an act of NSSI during the follow-up period,” Muehlenkamp and her colleagues warned. “Although it is unlikely that this result is due to exposure to the research protocol, given the lack of difference in rates across the experimental and control groups, researchers still need to remain cautious and sensitive to the fact that participants with a history of NSSI are vulnerable to future acts.”

In addition, a three-week follow-up assessment found that about 12 percent of participants said that the study contributed to some lasting distress. But there was no difference between participants who completed the questionnaire that asked about NSSI and participants who completed the questionnaire that didn’t ask, making it difficult to tell what was distressing.

Though the findings suggest that participating in a study on self-injury does not cause negative reactions in most participants, researchers should not completely dismiss the potential risks of studying sensitive topics, Muehlenkamp and her colleagues said.

“The convergence of findings that a minority of participants do experience some distress as a result of participating in research on potentially sensitive and distressing topics highlights the need for researchers to ensure that they are taking precautions to protect such participants.”