Barriers and facilitators to discussing parent mental health within child health care: Perspectives of parents raising a child with congenital heart disease.
Melanie K Franklin, Allison Karpyn, Jennifer Christofferson and 8 others
PMID 34879743WHAT IT FOUND
Parents of children with congenital heart disease often avoided discussing their own mental health with care teams, citing fear of judgment, staying strong, or outside scope.
They said they were more open when providers asked directly and responded supportively.
Key findings
01Parents reported that they did not consider parent mental health support to be within the skill set of their child’s providers, and they were rarely asked how they were coping.
02Parents feared that emotional disclosure could be judged as a sign of poor parenting or lead to unwanted interventions.
03Parents were more likely to discuss their mental health when they trusted a provider’s ability to help and when the provider proactively started the conversation.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample was mostly non-Hispanic White mothers, and the authors said future research is needed to see whether these themes apply to more diverse families. Recruitment happened mainly through social media advocacy groups, which may have underrepresented fathers and racial or ethnic minorities. The study captured parent perceptions of past care, not direct observations of provider behavior. How often parents interacted with providers was not measured. Available psychosocial services varied by hospital and region but were not measured.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The article is tagged as supported by NIH and U.S. government research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that asking parents about mental health improves outcomes. It reports parents’ perceived barriers and facilitators, not a tested intervention.