Impact of a diagnosis of mental illness on young people

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Understanding the impact of a diagnosis of mental illness on a young person and their family

• IRAS ID

  230625

• Contact name

  Sally Brown

• Contact email

  s.brown3@napier.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Edinburgh Napier University

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 5 months, 30 days

• Research summary

  This is a pilot study which concerns the impact of a diagnosis of mental illness on young people and their families. One in ten adolescents suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder and there is increasing awareness that early diagnosis and intervention are important. Illness can affect personal and social functioning, and being labelled as mentally ill may be stigmatising. This can be educationally and socially critical for both diagnosed adolescents and their siblings. Therefore it is important to understand how young people and their families react to a diagnosis of mental illness, in order to develop care and support for the whole family.
  The study will take a qualitative approach; interviews will be carried out with 15-20 adolescents who have had a formal diagnosis of either psychosis or anxiety explained to them to explore their understanding of the diagnosis itself and the process of being diagnosed. Anxiety and psychosis have been chosen because the experience of receiving a serious diagnosis (psychosis) may be qualitatively distinct from receiving a less ‘serious’ diagnosis (anxiety). Interviews with their parents/carers and siblings will explore the process and impact of diagnosis on family members.

  The aims of the study are to better understand the process of diagnosis from the family perspective in order to contribute to the development of better services and support for all family members, to test recruitment methods for a larger study, and to determine whether the subsequent study should focus solely on diagnoses of serious illness (e.g. psychosis) or include a broader range of diagnoses with high prevalence amongst adolescents (e.g. anxiety).

• REC name

  West of Scotland REC 5

• REC reference

  17/WS/0196

• Date of REC Opinion

  26 Sep 2017

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion