- Title
- Clinical management of deliberate self-harm in young people: the need for evidence-based approaches to reduce repetition
- Creator
- Burns, Jane; Dudley, Michael; Hazell, Phillip; Patton, George
- Relation
- Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry Vol. 39, no. 3, p. 121-128
- Publisher
- Blackwell Science
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2005
- Description
- Objective: To examine the evidence for the effectiveness of clinical interventions designed to reduce the repetition of deliberate self-harm (DSH) in adolescents and young adults. Methods: Electronic databases were searched for papers describing randomised and clinical control trials (RCTs) and quasi-experimental studies of interventions targeting adolescents and young adults presenting to clinical services following DSH or suicidal ideation. Results: Three RCTs, four clinical control trials and three quasi-experimental studies were identified. Group therapy, trialled in a RCT, was the only specific programme which led to a significant reduction in rates of repetition of self-harm. Attendance at follow-up did not improve significantly regardless of the intervention, while one clinically controlled trial of intensive intervention resulted in poorer attendance at follow-up. One quasi-experimental study of family therapy resulted in a significant reduction in suicidal ideation. Conclusions: The evidence base for treatments designed to reduce the repetition of self-harm in adolescents and young adults is very limited. Expensive interventions such as intensive aftercare offer no clear benefit over routine aftercare. Given that deliberate self-harm among young people is a common clinical problem further good quality treatment studies are warranted. Careful consideration should be given to process evaluation to determine which individual components of any given intervention are effective.
- Subject
- clinical interventions; deliberate self-harm; evidence based; young; people; adolescent suicide attempters; randomized controlled-trial; evidence; based medicine; methodological issues; poisoned themselves; youth; suicide; follow-up; intervention; parasuicide; care
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/24456
- Identifier
- uon:57
- Identifier
- ISSN:1440-1614
- Language
- eng
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