Edmondson, JA, Brennan, CA orcid.org/0000-0002-5258-8497 and House, AO orcid.org/0000-0001-8721-8026 (2018) Using photo-elicitation to understand reasons for repeated self-harm: a qualitative study. BMC Psychiatry, 18 (1). 98. ISSN 1471-244X
Abstract
Background: Reasons for self-harm are not well understood. One of the reasons for this is that first hand accounts are usually elicited using traditional interview and questionnaire methods. This study aims to explore the acceptability of using an approach (photo-elicitation) that does not rely on solely verbal or written techniques, and to make a preliminary assessment of whether people can usefully employ images to support a discussion about the reasons why they self-harm.
Method: Interviews with eight participants using photo elicitation, a method in which photographs produced by the participant are used as a stimulus and guide within the interview.
Results: Participants responded positively to using images to support a discussion about their self harm and readily incorporated images in the interview. Four main themes were identified representing negative and positive or adaptive purposes of self-harm: self-harm as a response to distress, self harm to achieve mastery, self-harm as protective and self-harm as a language or form of communication.
Conclusions: Employing this novel approach was useful in broadening our understanding of self harm
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
Keywords: | Self-harm, Self-Injury, Photo Elicitation, Visual Methods, Motive, Reason, Function, Qualitative Research, Experience |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 29 Mar 2018 10:49 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 21:17 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BioMed Central |
Identification Number: | 10.1186/s12888-018-1681-3 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:129083 |