When Facing Hopeful and Hopeless Experiences: Using Snyder's Hope Theory to Understand Parents' Caregiving Experiences for Their Medically Complex Child.

Abstract

An emerging subpopulation within pediatric chronic illness is children living with complex chronic conditions. Managing a child's complex chronic conditions can be emotionally taxing for parents. Many parents regard hope as a "life-sustaining and essential" process for them. We used the central concepts within Snyder's hope theory to guide our directed content analysis of parents' interviews about their hopeful and hopeless experiences. Our sample consisted of primarily Christian married mothers. We found themes within each concept of Snyder's hope theory that clarifies the social and communicative processes that facilitate more hopeful thinking for parents. Understanding how individuals communicate or enact hopeful thinking is an important contributor to performing hope in social settings like hospitals and nonprofit organizations (Ronald McDonald House) that support parents with medically complex children. Our findings indicate that messages should help parents identify care solutions, offer words of encouragement, and help parents create life goals that maintain a child's quality of life.