Practical Practitioner
By: Pamela Egan, FNP-C CDE
Piercings, tattoos: a potential warning sign for parents
Dear Pam,
My 13-year-old son came home with an earring and a tattoo after spending the weekend at his friends house. It’s been World War II in our house ever since. Should we leave him alone?
Your anger and disappointment with your child are understandable. At this point however, you should start to look at why it happened and seek answers for the future. For beginners, your child needs a better level of care and supervision away from home.
Adolescents with tattoos and/or body piercing may need extra attention and monitoring from parents and clinicians; results of a recent survey suggest that these young persons are more likely than their contemporaries to engage in high-risk behaviors, such as drug use, sexual activity and violence.
The investigation involved 484 patients, ages 12 to 22, who attended the Adolescent Clinic of the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, on selected days from December 2000 through April 2001. The clinic treats dependents of military personnel. Girls accounted for 59 percent of respondents. Forty percent were white; 11 percent, Hispanic or Latin; 26 percent, Asian; and 9 percent other.
These young people completed a 58-question survey based on the 1997 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Additional survey items included questions about the presence of tattoos and body piercing sand details about them, including the ages at which they were acquired. The survey contained six categories including; disordered eating behavior, sexual behavior, violence, gateway drug (tobacco, alcohol, marijuana) use, hard drug use and suicide thoughts or attempts.
Of the respondents, 13.2 percent had tatoos and 26.9 percent had body piercings other than the ear lobes.
The ear cartilage, mouth/tongue and navel were all common locations for piercing. Both tattoos and body piercing were more common among females than males.
Scores on the violence index were more than three times higher among males with tattoos and more than twice as high among females with body piercing, than among males and females without. Furthermore, suicide scores were almost twice as high among females with tattoos than among those without.
No association was found between numbers of tattoos and a participant’s scores.
However, the age at which these kids obtained their first tattoo or body piercing was influential.
Thirty-two percent higher scores on the gateway drug index were found among adolescents who had obtained their tattoos at 16 years or younger; scores were 44 percent higher among adolescents who had received body piercing between ages 11 and 13. Interestingly, those who were pierced before age 10 had significantly lower gateway drug index scores.
On the hard drug index scores, teens with two or more body piercing had scores that were twice as high as those with one piercing; scores were threefold among those with three or more piercings.
Although they recommend that clinicians screen for suicidal thoughts, behaviors and attempts among adolescents with “body modifications,” the authors also acknowledge that “the presence of tattoos and body piercing in adolescents does not necessarily indicate risk-taking behavior in particular individuals.”
They emphasize that every adolescent health visit should include questions about risk-taking behaviors so that appropriate preventive measure, such as counseling, can be taken.
This article was originally published October 14, 2002 in The St. Tammany News.
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