School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Int J Ment Health Nurs. 2023 Oct;32(5):1405-1415. doi: 10.1111/inm.13185. Epub 2023 Jun 18.
Current research views hope as a process that plays a positive role in the recovery of individuals with mental health problems. However, little attention has been given to the role of hope in the lives of their families. We aimed to address that gap. We deployed a qualitative descriptive design and carried out individual interviews with nine family members who supported a relative with mental health problems. A cross-comparison of the data generated three major themes: understandings of hope; factors that diminish hope and factors that nurture hope. The participants viewed hope as a positive and productive feeling or attitude that was life-affirming, and empowering. They also associated it with behaviours and dispositions such as attentiveness and empathy and the possibility of a return to a more stable and 'normal' life. The participants experienced hope as initially eroded when their relative was first diagnosed and institutionalized. Hope was further diminished due to the poor communication practices of some mental health professionals and the stress of the caring role itself. On the other hand, hope was nurtured through the support of other family members, friends, neighbours and peers. Acquiring knowledge and understanding about the relative's state of mental health nurtured hope and enabled the participants to have a more meaningful role in their recovery process. Practices of self-care such as independent activities and counselling also strengthened hope and some mental health professionals played a positive role in supporting these. Most striking about the reports of many of the participants was their assertion of their abiding love for their relative. Their account of their ability to see beyond the illness of their relative was an insight that we did not find in other accounts of the experiences of family members. We highlight the need for family members to have timely access to relevant information about their relatives' illness. We conclude that hope is relational at its core because of the interplay of intrapersonal, interpersonal and social factors that diminish or nurture it over time. Specifically, we propose that friends, neighbours and peer support groups as key actors in nurturing the hope of both family members and their relatives.
目前的研究观点认为希望是一个对心理健康问题个体康复起到积极作用的过程。然而，人们对希望在其家庭成员生活中的作用关注甚少。我们旨在弥补这一空白。我们采用了定性描述性设计，并对 9 名支持有心理健康问题亲属的家庭成员进行了个体访谈。对生成的数据进行跨比较后得出了三个主要主题：对希望的理解；削弱希望的因素和培养希望的因素。参与者将希望视为一种积极且富有成效的感觉或态度，它是肯定生命和赋予力量的。他们还将其与关注和同理心等行为和性情以及恢复到更稳定和“正常”生活的可能性联系起来。当他们的亲属首次被诊断和住院时，参与者最初体验到希望被削弱。由于一些心理健康专业人员沟通不良以及照顾角色本身的压力，希望进一步减弱。另一方面，通过其他家庭成员、朋友、邻居和同龄人支持，希望得以培养。获得有关亲属精神健康状况的知识和理解培养了希望，并使参与者在康复过程中能够发挥更有意义的作用。自我保健实践，如独立活动和咨询，也增强了希望，一些心理健康专业人员在支持这些方面发挥了积极作用。许多参与者报告的最引人注目的是他们对亲属的持久的爱。他们能够超越亲属的疾病，这让我们在其他关于家庭成员经历的描述中没有发现。我们强调需要让家庭成员及时获得有关亲属疾病的相关信息。我们的结论是，希望从本质上说是一种关系，因为个人、人际和社会因素相互作用，随着时间的推移削弱或培养了希望。具体而言，我们提出朋友、邻居和同伴支持小组是培养家庭成员及其亲属希望的关键因素。
