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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

EV1337

"Not opening Pandora's box": Healthcare professionals' experiences of managing self-harm among children and young people in Pakistan

"AVOIDING PANDORA'S BOX": HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS' EXPERIENCES OF MANAGING SELF-HARM IN CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN PAKISTAN

Among healthcare professionals managing self-harm in children and young people in Pakistan, 79.2% have received no formal training in this area, and substantial gaps in clinical management are reported.

The study aimed to qualitatively explore the experiences of healthcare professionals (HCPs) managing self-harm among children and young people in Pakistan and to identify training needs to inform a co-produced training module. Using purposive sampling, 24 participants from different specialties were recruited for three focus groups of eight participants each; the data were analysed thematically using double coding and triangulation. Of the participants, 58.3% were men and 41.7% were women; the specialty distribution was psychiatry 54.2%, general medicine 16.7%, emergency medicine 12.5%, clinical psychology 8.3%, and paediatrics 8.3%. Overall, 79.2% of participants had received no previous formal training in managing self-harm among young people. Five main themes were identified: understanding self-harm (conflicting views ranging from an emotional coping strategy to manipulation or attention-seeking); gaps in clinical management (physicians avoiding psychiatric assessment, an inability to maintain privacy in crowded wards, and stigma and low follow-up rates fragmenting care); the healthcare professional's role (although an empathetic approach was valued, confidentiality and patient autonomy were often disregarded because of family wishes); training needs and content (risk assessment, communication skills, medicolegal guidance, consultation protocols, and clinician self-care); and implementation and delivery (blended learning lasting less than three hours, a mandatory psychiatry rotation, and incentives supported by continuing medical education credits). Recommendations include mandatory training in assessment, empathetic communication, and same-day safety planning; a blended learning model incentivised through continuing medical education credits; separate spaces in emergency departments to ensure privacy; and reliable interdepartmental consultation protocols. The poster emphasises that no structured self-harm training programme existed in the country before this study.

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