Investigating the role of the intensity and duration of self-injury thoughts in self-injury with ecological momentary assessment.

•Studied which components of non-suicidal self-injury thoughts (NSSI) impact NSSI.•Studied what alternative behaviors to NSSI following NSSI thoughts are common.•Thought intensity, duration interacted to predict NSSI frequency, duration, methods.•NSSI thought intensity predicted NSSI behaviors most at long NSSI thought durations.•The most common alternative behaviors to NSSI were talking to others, distraction.