Parents' perspectives on adolescent self-harm: qualitative study.
BACKGROUND
Parents' perspectives on self-harm are considered important, but have not been explored.


OBJECTIVE
To gain perspective of parents of adolescents who self-harm on: (a) history of self-harm and health service provision; (b) their understanding and ability to make sense of self-harm behaviour; (c) emotional and personal impact; and (d) parent skills as carer and hope for the future.


METHODS
Interpretative phenomenological analysis was applied to semi-structured interviews with 12 parents of adolescents receiving treatment for self-harm in community child and adolescent mental health services.


RESULTS
Parents commonly suspected and spotted self-harm prior to disclosure or service contact; however, communication difficulties and underestimating significance led to delays in addressing the behaviour. Parents struggled to understand and cope with self-harm.


CONCLUSIONS
Parents require advice and support from outside services to help them manage self-harming behaviour and its personal impact. This study suggests parents are early to spot signs of self-harm, indicating their key role in reaching young people in the community who remain unknown to health services.
Oldershaw
Anna
A
King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK. anna.oldershaw@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Richards
Clair
C
Simic
Mima
M
Schmidt
Ulrike
U
D000293:Adolescent; D001290:Attitude; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008131:London; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D018570:Risk Assessment; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires