Stress-related personal growth among emerging adults whose mothers have been diagnosed with mental illness

Abstract

Objective: This study explored whether emerging adults' reports of their relationships with their mothers who have been diagnosed with mental illness and their attempts to make meaning of the experience of having a mother with mental illness were associated with stress-related personal growth.

Methods: Fifty-two emerging adult children with mothers who have been diagnosed with mental illness responded to a self-report questionnaire containing measures of adult parent-child relationships, meaning making, and stress-related personal growth.

Results: Hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis of the cross-sectional data indicated that meaning making contributed to stress-related personal growth after accounting for emerging adult-mother relationship factors. Aspects of the emerging adult-mother relationship did not contribute to growth.

Conclusions: Efforts to make meaning of having a mother with mental illness may facilitate growth among emerging adult children. Longitudinal investigations in larger samples are needed to better understand the relationship among interpersonal relationships, meaning making, and growth in this population.

Implications for practice: Interventions with adult children of people with mental illness should address their capacity for personal growth.