Adolescent non-suicidal self-injury scale - short form: revision and evaluation of its reliability and validity

Objective

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a clinically significant concern among adolescents, and its accurate yet efficient assessment is essential for research, early identification, and intervention. Existing Chinese instruments-most notably the 19-item Adolescent Self-Harm Questionnaire (ASHS)-are relatively lengthy and ill-suited to rapid, large-scale screening. The present study had two aims: (a) to develop a short form of the ASHS, the Adolescent Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Scale-Short Form (ANSSI-SF), by integrating classical test theory (CTT) item analysis with genetic algorithm (GA) cross-validation, and (b) to evaluate its reliability, validity, and screening utility relative to the parent scale.