Parents’ Experiences of Caring Responsibility for Their Adult Child with Schizophrenia

Abstract

As a consequence of the latest psychiatry-related reform in Sweden and its implementation, relatives and family members have taken over from the formal healthcare system significant responsibility for the care of persons with a mental disability and illness. The aim of this study was to systematically describe and analyze the experiences of parents' informal care responsibility. The questions were, what are the experiences around parents' informal care activities and responsibilities and how do parents construct and manage their caring responsibility and with what consequences? Semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted (16 hours of recorded material) with eight parents who were all members of the Interest Association for Schizophrenia (Intresseföreningen för Schizofreni (IFS)) in Sweden. A mixed hermeneutic deductive and inductive method was used for the interpretation of the material. The parents endow their informal caring responsibility with meaning of being a good, responsible, and accountable parent with respect to their social context and social relationships as well as with respect to the psychiatric care representatives. In this tense situation, parents compromise between elements of struggle, cooperation, avoidance, and adaption in their interaction with the world outside, meaning the world beyond the care provision for their child, as well as with the world inside themselves.

Health Professionals as Mothers of Adult Children With Schizophrenia

“…The participants recognized their children were at a high risk of disengaging from mental health treatment (Arnett et al, 2014) and were not going to stop mothering their children when they became adults (Francis-Connolly & Sytniak, 2015). The findings confirmed that mothering young adults with schizophrenia involved adapting caring responsibilities according to the individual manifestations of their illness (Blomgren Mannerheim et al, 2016).…”

Well-being in Old Age: A Question of Both Continuity and Change

“…To experience health and well-being requires the ability of "being able to" fulill small and large life projects [2]. Consequently, the experience of well-being is linked to health and the ability to fulill one's own life projects [3], regardless of whether they are small or big, regardless of the complexities of life, and regardless of the person's age.…”

“…To experience health and well-being requires the ability of "being able to" fulill small and large life projects [2]. Consequently, the experience of well-being is linked to health and the ability to fulill one's own life projects [3], regardless of whether they are small or big, regardless of the complexities of life, and regardless of the person's age.However, such an answer is in a certain way not entirely satisfactory because an understanding of well-being, or to actually experience well-being, is not always a question of having good physical health and being free of disease. A person's health can alternate between the poles of objective health and disease and the subjective experience of feeling bad and feeling good.…”

Predictors of family caregiving burden of persons with schizophrenia with and without transition of primary caregivers from 1994 to 2015 in rural China

“…For instance, a substantial number of studies have reported a high risk of psychological distress experienced by parent caregivers. [18][19][20] Marriage or partnership was also greatly influenced by the illness, especially among cases in which the spouse caregivers resided with and cared for the PwSs for many years. 17 Recent studies found that the psychological well-being of sibling caregivers was affected by a significant caregiving burden.…”