What this Trial Is About

Mental health professionals investigating child sexual abuse (CSA) among children and adolescents is a major public health challenge. Many studies have shown the obstacles to disclose, with professionals having difficulties to address this issue and survivors having difficulties to disclose. Many children, old enough to tell what happened to them, would disclose this traumatic event only many years after, but they suffer from psychiatric and/or somatic disorders meanwhile. CSA survivors presenting psychiatric symptoms very often receive a psychiatric treatment within child \& adolescent psychiatric (CAP) departments. The investigators aim to better understand what is at stakes around the issue of disclosure of CSA by teenagers within CAP services, so to draw concrete implications to improve investigation efficacy and disclosure support by mental health professionals. To date, no study has ever explored these issues of investigating and disclosing CSA in CAP services. Qualitative methods are quite relevant here, aiming as they do, to in-depth explore complex issues, through the lived experience of the stakeholders. The main objective of this study is to explore the lived experience of disclosing CSA among (i) adolescents and young adults followed in a CAP service, (ii) parents, and (iii) child \& adolescent mental health professionals working in CAP services who have experienced a CSA disclosure. Crossing perspectives will bring answers to the complex question: "how to disclose a CSA within a CAP service?" and will lead to concrete implications to improve treatment of children and adolescents with an history of CSA. It is an exploratory qualitative multi-center design following the IPSE approach - Inductive Process to analyze the structure of lived experience-.

To Disclose a Child Sexual Abuse Within Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Services