Quarshie, EN-B orcid.org/0000-0002-8720-2355, Waterman, M and House, A (2020) Adolescents at risk of self-harm in Ghana: a qualitative interview study exploring the views and experiences of key adult informants. BMC Psychiatry, 20 (1). 310. ISSN 1471-244X
Abstract
Background
In Ghana, rates of self-harm in young people are as high as they are in high income countries. Self-reported interpersonal, familial and societal stressors form the most important background, and self-harm is seen by young people as a way of responding to that stress. In the present study, we obtained the views of key adult informants about self-harm among adolescents in Ghana – what they thought as possible reasons for self-harm in young people and what actions might be needed at an individual or population level to respond to the problem.
Methods
We interviewed face-to-face 11 adults, using a semi-structured interview guide. We used an experiential thematic analysis technique to analyse the transcribed interviews.
Results
The analysis identified five themes: “underestimating the prevalence of self-harm in adolescents”, “life on the streets makes self-harm less likely”, “self-harm in adolescents is socially and psychologically understandable”, “ambivalence about responding to adolescent self-harm”, and “few immediate opportunities for self-harm prevention in Ghana”. Adolescent self-harm was acknowledged but its scale was underestimated. The participants offered explanations for adolescent self-harm in social and psychological terms that are recognisable from accounts in high income countries. Low rates among street-connected young people were explained by their overarching orientation for survival. Participants agreed that identification was important, but they expressed a sense of inadequacy in identifying and supporting adolescents at risk of self-harm. Again, the participants agreed that self-harm in adolescents should be prevented, but they recognised that relevant policies were not in place or if there were policies they were not implemented – mental health and self-harm were not high on public or political priorities.
Conclusions
The adults we interviewed about young people who self-harm see themselves as having a role in identifying adolescents at risk of self-harm and see the organisations in which they work as having a role in responding to individual young people in need. These are encouraging findings that point to at least one strand of a policy in Ghana for addressing the problem of self-harm in young people.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s). 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. 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 in a credit line to the data. |
Keywords: | Adolescents, Ghana, Resilience, Rhetorical distancing ,Self-harm, Street-connected adolescents,Sub-Saharan Africa,Suicide,Teachers,Social workers |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 19 Jun 2020 15:38 |
Last Modified: | 19 Jun 2020 15:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BMC |
Identification Number: | 10.1186/s12888-020-02718-6 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:161964 |
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