“I Will Communicate With You, But Let Me Be In Control”: Understanding How Parents Manage Private Information About Their Chronically Ill Children

Abstract

Parents have a significant role in the management of a child's chronic condition. Parents are often the only consistent individuals managing a child's health across his or her childhood and adolescence (e.g., present for all appointments and medical procedures). Many of the responsibilities required of parents involve communication work, where parents must strategically and actively design messages as they interact with medical professionals, other family, and friends. Using communication privacy management theory, we analyzed interviews conducted with 35 parents to understand the motivations and strategies involved in their regulation of information about their child's chronic condition. These findings have important practical implications because parental involvement in a chronically ill child's care has direct effects on familial adaptation and adjustment.