2015 Volume 18 Issue 1 Pages 30-39
[Problem and Purpose] Teachers, staffs managing health of students (Yogo), and school counselors (SC) cooperate in their interactions with students who injure themselves. However, there is little understanding as to what knowledge or awareness these responding staffs possess regarding self-injurious behavior and what emotions they experience during the interactions. Therefore, this study sought to better understand the responsesand backgrounds by conducting a questionnaire survey of the staffs in middle and high schools; additionally, this study investigates whether answering patterns were affected by occupation and breadth of the responding experience.
[Methods] A questionnaire survey was administered to teachers, Yogo, and SC from middle and high schools, asking for respondent information (occupation and the total number of self-injuring students that were responded to), knowledge and awareness of self-injurious behavior, and their emotions accompanying a response. Using the 319 answers obtained, the differences between the teacher and Yogo–SC groups were analyzed, as well as differences in the number of students responded to in the teacher group.
[Results] A comparison of the teacher and Yogo–SC groups found significantly more respondents in the Yogo–SC group who understood self-injurious behavior to be a method of controlling one’s feelings. In contrast, there were significantly more respondents in the teacher group who experienced specific emotions, such as surprise, shock, and fear. Furthermore, an analysis of the number of students responded to found that these emotions were felt more strongly among teachers with less experience in responding.
[Discussion] These results suggest that differences in occupation (teacher, Yogo, and SC) result in differences in awareness and emotions regarding responses to self-injurious behavior. Furthermore, as seen in the teacher group, the breadth of responding experience has a positive effect. If fellow staffs can complement one another with a consideration of these differences in awareness and emotions, it may result in better cooperation.
