title: Balancing Competing Needs: A Meta-Ethnography of Being a Partner to an Individual With a Mood Disorder.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  More than 20% of individuals experience a mood disorder in their lifetime. Qualitative studies have explored the experience of being a partner to an individual with a mood disorder, but these studies remain isolated pieces of a larger puzzle.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  In this metasynthesis, I aimed to integrate current qualitative research to describe the experience of being a partner to an individual with a mood disorder.
  
  
  METHODS
  A systematic search was conducted to identify qualitative research. Noblit and Hare's meta-ethnography was used to translate key metaphors from individual studies into a single set of metaphors to describe the experience.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results indicated that these partners are disenfranchised caregivers balancing their own needs with partners' perceived and reported needs to strive for a stasis of guarded stability.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Future research must explore ways to support these partners and include them in the health care team.
authors.affiliation: Laura Foran Lewis, RN, PhD, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA lforanlewis@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Laura Foran
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Lewis
mesh_terms: D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D001294:Attitude to Health; D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012747:Sexual Partners / Q000523:psychology*; D018454:Spouses / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: caregiving; depression; metasynthesis; mood disorders; partner/spouse; qualitative research