“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;