"We found that negative perfectionism was related to greater self-injury in females only — the more girls were exhibiting negative perfectionism the more likely they were to engage in self-injury in the future," Brocklesby said.
She also examined the functions of the behaviour, exploring the reasons people self-injure.
"For perfectionistic adolescents, they are especially likely to be engaging in self-injury to punish themselves for perceived mistakes or failures."
She'd expected to see a relationship between negative perfectionism and self-injury, but one aspect of the findings surprised her.
"Positive perfectionism is often thought of as a beneficial trait that helps you achieve high standards, but my research showed that adolescents who are positively perfectionistic can transform into negative perfectionists over time," Brocklesby said.
"What might initially seem like positive behaviour can turn into negative patterns, which can then have negative outcomes."
Her supervisor and the Youth Wellbeing Study's leader, Professor Marc Wilson, said perfectionism was sometimes exacerbated by miscommunication.
"Parents typically want the very best for their children, and may not be aware that the way they communicate this might be experienced as pressure to do well, rather than the desire for children to do well," Wilson said.
"Madeleine's research is the most comprehensive investigation to date into the relationship between perfectionism and mental health outcomes broadly, and self-injury specifically."
The Youth Wellbeing Study also provided resources for the communities it worked with, including graphic novels about self-injury, information pamphlets and a short film created by young mothers about challenges they've faced.
Brocklesby saw potential for her work to be used as part of future programmes in schools.
"I think it's really important for schools, teachers and parents to be aware of perfectionism.
"Today's adolescents are under a huge amount of pressure with social media and constant assessments at school — and that pressure is potentially causing quite a lot of distress."
She believed it was also important to remove the stigma from talking about these issues, and to debunk the common myth that adolescents who engaged in self-injury did so for attention-seeking reasons.
"The thing with perfectionists is that quite often people won't know that they're engaging in self-injury," she said.
"They want to present a perfect front and appear flawless, which might mean that a perfectionistic adolescent is in a lot of distress but no one knows — they tend to think of it as a dent in their armour to ask for help."
WHERE TO GET HELP:
If you are worried about your or someone else's mental health, the best place to get help is your GP or local mental health provider. However, if you or someone else is in danger or endangering others, call 111.
If you need to talk to someone, the following free helplines operate 24/7:
DEPRESSION HELPLINE: 0800 111 757
LIFELINE: 0800 543 354
NEED TO TALK? Call or text 1737
SAMARITANS: 0800 726 666
YOUTHLINE: 0800 376 633 or text 234
There are lots of places to get support. For others, click here.
