April 7-9, 2022 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Abstract: Parents’ Perceptions of Youths’ Mental Health Disclosure Process
Up to 1 in 5 adolescents are estimated to experience mental illness (Polanczyk et al., 2014). Many adolescents fail to receive counseling, therapy, or other professional care for their mental illness (Whitney & Peterson, 2019), which can lead to life-long consequences for the adolescents. Disclosure of mental illness symptoms to a parent is often a crucial step for adolescents to gain access to mental health resources (Logan & King, 2001). For adolescents, the process of deciding whether to disclose such personal, private information to a parent is fraught with barriers that can discourage disclosure. The act of disclosing about a concealed health issue, like mental illness, impacts interpersonal relationships and future disclosure events (Chaudoir & Fisher, 2010; Greene 2009). Adolescents often consider their own mental health literacy and the severity of their symptoms in addition to their perceptions of their parents’ attitudes about mental health when they decide whether to disclose (Rasmussen et al., 2020). In addition, children must continually disclose their mental health symptoms to parents so that they can receive long-term care and emotional support. Thus, parents’ behavior after an adolescent’s disclosure of mental illness is important for that child’s long-term mental health. In addition, adolescents may evaluate their parents’ perceptions of empathy and their parents’ potential negative responses (Rasmussen et al., 2020). For example, adolescents may worry about how parents may react to the disclosure, or they may think their parents won’t understand what they’re going through. Adolescents may also be more willing to disclose their mental health symptoms with their parents when they perceive their parent/child relationship to be of good quality and characterized by open communication (Rasmussen et al., 2020). What is less clear, however, is whether adolescents’ concerns about their parents’ perceptions are based on parents’ actual attitudes and knowledge about mental health. More research is needed to understand parents’ attitudes and knowledge about mental health to better understand the adolescent mental health disclosure process. This study explores parents’ perceptions of children experiencing mental health challenges and their thoughts about how they, as a parent, would react should their child disclose their experiences with a potentially diagnosable mental health disorder. This research will contribute valuable information about communication about mental illness within the parent-child dyad and promote adolescent well-being through addressing this barrier to disclosure. Approximately 300 parents of adolescents (ages 13-18) who have been diagnosed with a mental illness, as well as of adolescents who have not received such a diagnosis, will be recruited to participate in an online survey. This survey includes questions related to their child’s mental health treatment history, their understanding of mental health issues, their need for control and connection with their child, and their exposure to media mental illness portrayals. Data collection for this survey will take place during January 2022, and full results will be presented at the conference if accepted.