Pet Ownership and Self-Harm in UK Youth: Survey Dataset on Bond Quality, Self-Harm Behaviours, and Suicide Risk

This dataset was collected as part of a cross-sectional survey investigating the relationship between pet ownership, the emotional quality of pet–owner bonds, and self-harm and suicide risk among young people aged 16–24 in the UK. The study aimed to test whether emotionally meaningful relationships with pets are associated with reduced psychological and behavioural risk in youth with lived experience of self-harm.

The dataset includes self-report measures of:

• Pet ownership status
• Number and diversity of pets owned
• Strength of the pet–owner bond (Pet Relationship Scale)
• Depression and anxiety symptoms (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale)
• Suicide risk (Suicidal Behaviours Questionnaire–Revised)
• Self-harm characteristics, including method severity, method diversity, and time since last self-harm episode (derived from open-text coding)
• Demographic variables (age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, income, UK region)

This dataset supports the manuscript “Beyond Ownership: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Pet–Owner Bond, Self-Harm and Suicide Risk in UK Young People Aged 16–24,” currently under review at Anthrozoös.

Ethical approval was granted by the University of Manchester Research Ethics Committee 5 (Ref: 18527).