title: Diagnosis in young children: how a father's perceptions of mental health change.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This case study's purpose was to understand how diagnosing mental illness in a child affects a parent's perception of mental health, using Denzin's interpretive interactionism.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two interviews from a case study were analyzed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Emergent themes were alienation from peers, ambivalence, shifting orientation to mental illness, school system stigmatization and conflict with mental health care, and discovery of mental healthcare specialists and new peers. Perceptions were influenced by peers, education, and mental healthcare systems, and by the disease model paradigm of mental illness. Future research should explore the effect of the diagnostic process on parents of very young children, and expand on consequences of undergoing current diagnostic and treatment practices.
authors: School of Nursing, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
authors: Marian
authors: M
authors: Morris
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002668:Child Rearing / Q000523:psychology*; D005220:Fathers / Q000523:psychology*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D036301:Qualitative Research
keywords: Child mental illness; interpretive interactionism; parent perception; qualitative