Emotional profile and risk behaviours among tattooed and non-tattooed students.

Aim: To determine differences in emotional profile and frequencies of certain risk behaviours between tattooed and non-tattooed students.

Methods: One hundred students fulfilled personality assessment (trust, timid, depressive, distrust, aggressive, gregarious, controlled, uncontrolled) and questionnaire of socio-demographic data that also included some questions about possession of tattoo (time, place, motive) and about certain risk behaviours (court punishment, consummation of alcohol, psychoactive substances and cigarettes).

Results: The total number of 35 (out of 100) students had a tattoo, and 67 wished to have a tattoo. There was no statistically significant difference in emotional profile between tattooed and non-tattooed individuals, yet the differences were detected when the group of subjects who wanted a tattoo and those who did not want a tattoo were compared. Higher result on the aggression scale of and lower on control scale was gained by those with the wish for tattooing. Students with bigger tattoos (23) showed higher score on depression scale. Students in the tattooed group more frequently abused drugs and committed traffic offences compared to the students in non-tattooed group.

Conclusion: Results of this research as well as previous research show that the presence of a tattoo could be a rough indicator for possible emotional problems and risk behaviour, which could have significant implications in preventing these behaviours. Future studies are required on a larger and more representative sample as well as to clarify why young people decide to be tattooed.