Parents’ Narratives in an Online PHPV Forum: Toward a Typology of Caregiver Illness Narratives

Abstract

The authors analyzed messages from an online support group for parents of children with Persistent Hyperplastic Primary Vitreous. This eye disorder, while not life-threatening, affects children’s eyesight and can impinge on the lives of parents and caretakers. The literature review examines Frank’s typology of illness narratives, prompting the question of whether Frank’s work is applicable to the narrative accounts of people who do not experience illness firsthand. Analysis of support group discourse not only confirms prior studies of illness narratives but also suggests that current typologies do not fully address the accounts of those who witness and are affected by the illness of another.