Centre for Youth Mental Health - Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/11343/251

Filters

2022 1
1
Reset filters

Settings
Statistics
Citations
End date: 2023 × Start date: 2022 × Type: Masters Research thesis ×

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Item
    No Preview Available
    Young people’s experiences of completing a trauma and PTSD screening tool when attending an early psychosis program
    Dryden-Mead, Tracey ( 2022-07)
    It is well established that many people with psychosis have experienced trauma in childhood. Young people with a first episode psychosis (FEP), who receive a service from an early psychosis program, have been identified as having high levels of trauma exposure in their childhood with up to 82% reporting this history. Research findings suggest that childhood trauma is not only a risk factor for psychosis but that this exposure to traumatic experiences is associated with psychosis in a dose-response fashion with increased reports of trauma increasing the risk or severity of psychosis. As there is now a known correlation between trauma experiences and the development of psychosis it is essential that the mental health services provide appropriate interventions following a thorough assessment of the young person’s needs. Best practice guidelines identify that screening for trauma occurs at introduction to mental health services to provide tailored clinical interventions, however the reality is many services do not routinely conduct these assessments. One of the main reasons cited for this is that clinicians are concerned about the potentially distressing and destabilising effect screening would have on the young person. Despite these concerns it is currently unclear how young people experience screening and/or trauma assessments as their voices have not been sought in research around trauma experiences, screening and assessments in early psychosis programs to date. This research therefore focused on exploring how young people experienced a screening process relating to their experiences of trauma and possible post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Participants were all engaged in an early psychosis service and had completed trauma and PTSD screening questionnaires in their first three months in the service. The researcher conducted interviews with ten young people and then analysed this data using an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach to synthesise data and relay these findings. Four super-ordinate themes are presented in the format of one published journal manuscript and the exploration of these are further reviewed during the discussion section. Whilst most of the participants found the completion of the screening tools to be confronting, with some reporting levels of mild distress during the completion, they were all able to complete them and none of the young people reported ongoing distress following the completion of them. These findings reinforce the recommendations for young people to be screened for trauma experiences when they are engaged in a mental health service and allow the clinicians to have more confidence in being able to support young people during this process.