Abstract
Objective:
One of the most common clinical conditions in child and adolescent psychiatry is self-harm behaviour, especially in adolescents. The aim of this review was to examine the features of this behaviour, and the inpatient and outpatient treatment approaches for the adolescents who self-harm.
Method:
The self-harm literature (particularly in adolescents) as a results of searching “adolescent", “self harm", “deliberate self harm", “inpatient unit" keywords in the Pub-Med has been reviewed.
Results:
Self-harm is an increasing behavioral problem with a tendency to repeat and it is mostly related to significant life events. Regarding the inpatient and outpatient treatment approaches, the fundamental points are; providing a secure environment for the patient, establishing rapport between the patient and the treatment team and teaching appropriate coping skills to the patient and the patient’s family.
Discussion:
Self-harm is an important problem area for the clinicians who work with adolescents. It is necessary to adopt appropriate approaches and to set multidimensional treatment applications. It is essential to provide treatment approaches with interdisciplinary collaboration and team work.
Keywords: Self-harm, adolescent, treatment.
