Mothers Caring for Adult Children With Substance Use Disorder: Understanding Lived Experience

Abstract

Background

Most persons with substance use disorder (SUD) live in family settings. In the absence of adequate mental health services, mothers are often called upon to provide care for their adult children with SUD. Despite positive outcomes such as decreased rates of hospitalization associated with family involvement, mothers are often stigmatized within the health care systems as contributors to trauma and/or family dysfunction.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore mothers’ lived experience of caring for adult children with SUD.

Method

Guided by critical feminist theory, this study used interpretive descriptive qualitative research design to identify patterns within mothers’ experiences for practical relevance and application to service provision.

Results

The findings yielded in this study identified mothers’ experiences as: longing for wellness, identity as loving mother, loss, anticipatory grief, shame and blame and feeling excluded from services. Ultimately, the findings from this study extend the limited research to date on mothers’ experiences of stigma, especially when they are blamed for their child’s illness.

Conclusions

Findings from this study advocate for family-centered approaches that attend to mothers’ unique experience, from their standpoint, and offer recommendations for change to service provision.

Keywords

Caregivers substance use disorder mothers

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