Measuring Tolerance Toward Self-Harm: Introducing the Lund Tolerance Toward Self-Harm Scale (LUTOSH)

Although self-harm is a common behavior and exists in many contexts, previous research on tolerance and attitudes has focused primarily on health care providers. Less is known about tolerance toward self-harm in the general population. To the best of our knowledge, there is currently no scale assessing public tolerance toward self-harm. For this purpose, a brief scale was constructed and tested for its psychometric properties in 2 samples: a general population sample (n = 336) and a sample of staff working in mental health care (n = 582). A 5-item version of this scale was found to have acceptable internal consistency and was labeled the Lund Tolerance Toward Self-Harm Scale (LUTOSH). Principal components analysis and confirmatory factor analysis indicated a 2-factor structure, with subscales that were named Tolerance and Intolerance. Convergent validity was established by analyzing correlations assessing attitudes toward other aspects of mental health and attitudes toward self-harm among psychiatric nurses. Research exploring the sensitivity to change over time of the measure is needed to further evaluate to usefulness of LUTOSH. In conclusion, results indicate that LUTOSH can be used as a brief instrument to explore public, and possibly provider, tolerance toward self-harm.