The purpose of this study was to understand and describe the meanings inherent in the lived experiences of Taiwanese children who have mentally ill patents from the perspectives of the children. A purposive sample of fifteen children aged 9 to 18 years old were recruited from a large metropolitan general teaching hospital in Taiwan where their parents received mental health services. The children’s rights as research participants were protected through an approved human subjects’ protocol. Data collection involved in-depth, audiotaped, face to face interviews with each child. A combination of the methods of Colaizzi, Giorgi, and van Manen was used to conduct a phenomenological analysis of data. Themes emerged from the data were validated by the participants and colleagues. Three essential themes represent the characteristic of the lived experiences of children growing up with a mentally ill parent: disruption of the family, experiencing the consequences, and coping with parental mental illness. Children’s differences in response to the influence of parental mental illness reflected the extent to which different children were involved in the burden of taking care of the mentally ill parent and the family. However, children did actively constitute an essential part in altering and shaping their environments. These themes are discussed as they related to the context of Chinese cultural values. This study has important implications for nurses and other health care professionals. It is proposed that as understanding children’s lived experience in a process level within a developmental framework, health care professionals can more effectively help children get into an adaptive life trajectory. Implications for nursing practice, education, and research are identified.
關聯:
the cooperation of east-west medicine in the 21st century：Intern
