Stigma of Parents of Children With Mental Illness Clinical Trial
Official title:
Starting the Conversation (STC) - Web-based Group Intervention to Support Disclosure Decisions for Parents of Children With Mental Illness
The purpose of the study is to evaluate the group-based intervention "Starting the Conversation" as a webinar in Germany. Feasibility and efficacy of the program will be tested in a pilot randomized-controlled trial (RCT).
Parents of children with mental illness often experience public and self-stigma, and keeping a child's mental illness secret is a common strategy to avoid stigma. Both secrecy and disclosure have pros and cons for parents and their children. Therefore, the decision whether, when, and to whom to disclose a child's mental illness is complex. Interventions can provide guidance for systematic consideration and a well informed decision. The manualized peer-led group intervention "Honest, Open, Proud" (HOP) supports people with mental illness in their decision whether to disclose mental illness. Research showed positive effects of the intervention on stigma stress, disclosure-related distress and quality of life. Based on HOP, "Starting the Conversation" (STC) was developed to systematically guide parents through their decision whether and how to disclose a child's mental illness. At the moment, there is no data regarding feasibility and efficacy of STC, but two pilot RCTs of STC are currently underway, one in Western Australia and one in Wisconsin, USA. The aim of the current study is to evaluate feasibility and efficacy of STC as a webinar in a pilot RCT in German. ;