Parental mental illness and its coverage patterns in print media: a content analysis

Project (M.S.W., Social Work) -- California State University, Sacramento, 2014.This study examined the extent to which the news coverage of parental mental illness is bias free, and if print media???s portrayal of parental mental illness indicates a pattern of disempowerment of parents??? capacity to parent. Using a content analysis method featuring fifty articles focusing on parental mental health within the text of two major newspapers during the period of 2001-2011 were used as cases for the content analysis. The study examined the experiences and challenges of mentally ill parents, as presented in the print media. Study results did not indicate conclusively that the print media participated in stereotypical portrayals of the mentally ill in general and parents living with mental illness in particular. In fact, 96.9% of the print media articles analyzed for this study did not contain any indicators of a hostile attitude or approach to presenting the details pertaining to parents living with mental illness. However, 11.8% of the articles presented the details about the cases in ways that were harmful to the mental health community. More articles focused on women with mental illnesses than men. The articles the researcher used had many components to them. Socioeconomic status, criminal history, whether or not the individual had health insurance, education, religious affiliation, and custody arrangements regarding the children were covered in very few articles. It is crucial to note that only 15.7% of the articles mentioned the resources available to the mental health community, including both service utilization and discussion of resources for the public as a whole. The trends in the identification of factors that were presented in the news media demonstrated the fact that while the print media did not do too much damage in reinforcing negative stigmas, they did not attempt to depict mentally ill parents in a more positive, realistic light.Social Wor