Factors that influence young people’s experiences of emergency suicide care in Australia: a qualitative study

Abstract

Young people in Australia are increasingly presenting to the emergency department in suicide crisis, where their experiences influence present and future treatment outcomes. Previous research on emergency suicide care has predominantly focused on adults’ experiences. This qualitative study aims to identify the factors that influence perceived positive and negative experiences of emergency suicide care for young people. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 young people aged 16-24 years old (mean age = 18.4 years) who presented to an Australian hospital in the past 12 months for a suicide crisis. Young people reflected on the care they received in the emergency department, and the factors that influenced the quality of care. Data underwent reflexive thematic analysis. Most young people reported a negative hospital experience, attributed to resource constraints and invalidating staff responses, reflecting underlying stigma around suicide. Conversely, when young people reported positive experiences, this was largely attributed to empathetic connections with staff. Our findings highlight the importance of compassionate care from hospital staff for young people’s experience of emergency suicide care. Future research with young people is needed to co-design and trial interventions that promote compassionate care and address the barriers with resource constraints in hospitals.

Keywords:

• Young people
• suicide crisis
• emergency department
• qualitative research
• hospital care

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the UNSW Medicine Neuroscience, Mental Health and Addiction Theme and SPHERE Clinical Academic Group Seed Funding scheme under Grant RG00075; MT is supported by NHMRC Early Career Fellowship under Grant 1138710. The funding source had no involvement in the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.