Implications for practice and research

• Disclosure and concealment dilemmas create significant challenges for parents of children with a mental illness.

• Healthcare professionals should empower parents by providing them information about mental illness to share with others to decrease stigma, advice about the best structure for disclosure about their child’s illness and support them when they experience negative consequences of disclosure or concealment.

• Further research is needed about fathers’, children’s and adolescents’ experiences with disclosure and concealment.

Context

There is a growing body of literature about the dilemmas and practices of concealing and disclosing a mental illness.1 2 The difficulties concerning parents’ disclosure about their child’s mental health may be even greater because childhood mental …