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School staff experiences of responding to adolescent self-harm: a qualitative systematic review protocol
Xubin He1, XingHong Xu, Ping Yang
1Chongqing Mental Health Center, Chongqing, China.
Objective:
This review will aim to systematically identify, appraise, and synthesize qualitative evidence on the lived experiences of K-12 school staff responding to adolescent self-harm.
Introduction:
As adolescent self-harm increases globally, school staff often serve as frontline gatekeepers; however, staff may feel ill-equipped to deal with such situations and experience psychological distress, uncertainty, and role ambiguity. Synthesizing these experiences is important for informing targeted competency training and strengthening school-based response and referral systems.
Eligibility Criteria:
This review will include primary empirical qualitative studies exploring the subjective experiences of K-12 school staff who have first-hand experience of recognizing, interpreting, or responding to adolescent self-harm, or supporting adolescents aged 10-19 years who engage in self-harm. The phenomenon of interest will include emotional responses, role negotiation, systemic challenges, referral pathways, and support and training needs. Purely quantitative studies and studies conducted exclusively in specialized clinical or non-school settings will be excluded.
Methods:
This review will follow the JBI methodology for systematic reviews of qualitative evidence. A comprehensive search without language restrictions will be conducted in PubMed, MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), PsycINFO (Ovid), Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection, relevant JBI evidence-based practice resources, CNKI, Wanfang Data, and CBM, from database inception to March 15, 2026. Gray literature, citation tracking, and expert consultation will supplement database searching. Two reviewers will independently screen studies, appraise methodological quality, and extract data, including qualitative findings, using standardized procedures. Qualitative findings will be synthesized using JBI meta-aggregation, and confidence in the synthesized findings will be assessed using the JBI ConQual approach.
Review Registration:
PROSPERO CRD420261341227.
