You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Qualitative
Families of patients with mental illness revised their ideas of what it means to live a “normal” life

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebn.6.2.61

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Rose L, Mallinson RK, Walton-Moss B. A grounded theory of families responding to mental illness.West J Nurs Res2002 ;24:516–36OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science

    QUESTION: How do families manage the experience of mental illness?

    Design

    Grounded theory.

    Setting

    A medical institution in the US.

    Participants

    29 family members (age range 18–73 y; 66% women; 66% white, 28% African-American, 7% Hispanic) of 17 patients who had schizophrenia, major depression, or bipolar disorder. Patients consented to researchers contacting their relatives. Family members had ≥1 weekly contact with patients. Most patients had a history of ≥3 hospital admissions.

    Methods

    Three 60–90 minute semistructured interviews were planned with each family over 2 years (soon after initial contact, at 6 mo, and at 1 y). Participants were asked to talk about their experiences of the illness, observations of social or cultural issues, and thoughts about the future. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and analysed using the constant comparative method.

    Main findings

    The basic social problem facing families was living with the ambiguity of mental illness. …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • For correspondence: no information available.

    • Source of funding: National Institute of Nursing Research.