Exploring predictors of parents’ negative emotional response to adolescents’ mental illness disclosures

Approximately 13% of children and adolescents struggle with a mental health disorder. Adolescents must often disclose information about their mental health (MH) distress to their parents to receive social support or professional care, but parents’ anticipated responses to these disclosures have also been identified as a barrier to disclosure. This study explored factors that influence parents’ negative emotional response to MH disclosure. Parents (N = 322) of adolescents were recruited to take an online survey that explored their depression literacy, stigmatizing beliefs about depression, and perceptions of a positive parent/child relationship. Results suggest that parents’ depression literacy is indirectly related to parents’ negative emotional response to disclosure through influencing parents’ depression stigma, and this indirect relationship was higher among parents who perceived a more warm parent/child relationship. The proposed model shows that parents’ depression literacy was first negatively associated with parents’ stigmatizing beliefs and that this was indirectly related to parents’ negative emotional response to disclosure. Physicians, MH professionals, and parents can use these findings to better understand factors that influence parents’ negative responses to MH disclosures.