Descriptive Data
The mean number of steps in the pathway to the specialist suicide
service was 2.90 contacts (SD = 1.33). The most frequent sequence
of contacts for the first three pathway steps was young person
> doctor/GP > psychologist (9% of sample had
this sequence). When the young person contact was not included, the most
frequent sequence of contacts for the first three pathway steps was
parent > doctor/GP > emergency
services/psychiatrist (8% had this sequence). The most frequent initial
contact was the young person, followed by the parent. The most common
professional contact was with a GP/Doctor followed by Psychologist. The
mean number of weeks between the onset of presenting problem to seeking
professional help (help-seeking delay) was 16.5 weeks (SD=1.5, range 1
to 208). Treatment delay, that is the time between seeking professional
help to accessing the SP service, averaged 37.7 weeks (SD=11.0; range 1
to 512). The duration between onset of presenting problems to accessing
SP, that is onset duration had a mean of 48.0 weeks (SD=16.0, range 1 to
512). Further descriptive statistics of the frequency of each contact
along the pathway are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Frequencies and percentages of contacts within each steps
of pathway to care.