Understanding the experiences of parents whose children have anxiety and/or low mood: using qualitative and quantitative methods to generate new theory (360G-Wellcome-343024_Z_25_Z)

We know that your child experiencing anxiety or low mood has a significant impact on parents’ wellbeing. Parents have to manage highly stressful situations like their child self-harming, feeling suicidal, struggling to attend school and arguments at home. Studies show this group of parents experience higher levels of shame, stigma, anxiety, and stress than other parents. However, at present, there is a lack of clarity on what good support aimed at improving wellbeing of parents in this situation would look like. Support options for parents often focus on improving their child’s wellbeing, or are more generally targeted at parents’ pre-existing mental health needs. Researchers have highlighted a lack of evidence-base regarding what specific mechanisms maintain higher distress for parents when they are parenting a child with mental health difficulties. Without understanding this, what targeted support for parents in this unique situation would involve, and how existing approaches may need to be adapted to be effective. I will look to meet this gap, using interviews and daily surveys (ecological momentary assessment) to identify key maintenance processes and develop a model of distress. Finally, I will explore the impact of potential intervention elements on parents’ distress, using a single-case experimental design.