The 24-7-52 job: family caregiving for young adults with serious and persistent mental illness

Few of the studies focusing on family caregiving have dealt with families caring for a young adult member with a serious and persistent mental illness. This qualitative study expands our understanding of the caregiving processes in these families. The narrative responses of 76 family caregivers from National Alliance for the Mentally Ill chapters across the United States were analysed using content analysis. Five caregiving processes were identified including monitoring, managing the illness, maintaining the home, supporting/encouraging, and socialising. Family caregivers cited a need for information about the illness and available resources with which to prepare themselves for their caregiving responsibilities. Multiple client outcomes were used by the caregivers to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts. Comparisons are made between these results and the findings of empirical studies in the broader caregiving literature.