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Parents' perceptions of their child's emotional illness and psychiatric treatment needs
K R Delaney1, B Engels-Scianna
1Children's Inpatient Unit, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA.
Problem:
The purpose of this study was to describe how parents define their child's emotional illness and psychiatric treatment needs.
Subjects:
The sample consisted of 19 parents and one grandparent (N = 20) who had recently admitted their child to a short-term psychiatric unit.
Methods:
Qualitative methods, utilizing a semistructured interview. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative method. Substantive codes were combined to derive the key concepts and themes in the interviews.
Findings:
The findings of this study center on themes related to parents' efforts to control the current behavioral crisis, treatment acceptability, family needs, explanatory formulations, and securing the child's future.
Conclusions:
Implications for treatment include how nurses might tap into parents' perceptions to facilitate parent' professional communication.