“How long ago was the first time you thought your child was at risk of suicide or self-harm?”.
Help-seeking delay. Caregivers also provided the length of time (in weeks) between the onset of the presenting problem and seeking professional help using the following item: “How long was the period from when you first noticed there was a problem until you began to seek professional help?”
Treatment delay. Treatment delay was determined by calculating the duration between help-seeking to accessing the SP service. Figure 1 shows a diagrammatic representation of these intervals.
A B
First noticed First started seeking Entry into Suicide
suicidality professional help Prevention service
Figure 1. Representation of intervals.
Note. A+B = Onset to entry to suicide prevention service “Onset duration ”; A = Problem identification to professional help seeking initiation “Help seeking delay” ; B = Professional help seeking initiation to SP service entry, “Treatment delay”
Contacts. The sequence and types of contacts involved in the individual participants’ PtC was obtained using the following item;“Please write in order who first alerted you to the problem, who you first contacted for help, and the other people you had seen prior to your child accessing the suicide prevention service.” Parents responded using the following sequenced trajectory item;