Abstract Previous research had documented an unprecedentedly high prevalence of mental illness among Chinese youth. The current literature reports that parents, as their main caretakers, experience tremendous stress when handling their children’s illnesses. When caring for mentally ill youth, families play a crucial role in meeting their needs, and parents may experience complex emotions and cognitions. This paper presents a qualitative study that used a novel theoretical framework grounded in social constructionism to examine the experience of parents when they recognized their children’s mental illnesses. Sixteen parents of young people aged 16–24 who were admitted to inpatient treatment at a tertiary hospital in Guangzhou were recruited. Two main themes were identified: (1) major discourses that produced parents’ subjectivities and (2) strategies of impression management among parents with human agency. The parents’ narratives highlight how their subjectivities were socially constructed by cultural and professional discourses and how they actively managed their image as the primary caregivers of their children. The findings indicate that when youth are diagnosed with mental illness, parents may not merely experience subjective burdens; they may also experience reflection and empathy. The results provide valuable insights for both practice and research for youth mental health rehabilitation.
Gao et al. (Wed,) studied this question.