Living with a chronic disease: The role of maternal mediation in the meaning-making process of their children's type 1 diabetes

In this article we present a qualitatively-driven study aimed at exploring the meaning-making processes related to the maternal elaboration of their child's diagnosis of chronic illness. In particular, we tried to examine a specific function of this process in mediating between the mothers' own emotional experiences and the management of their children's illness on a daily basis. We analyzed the narratives of 21 mothers of young patients with type one diabetes mellitus (T1D), aged between 6 and 17 years, collected through the "Sense of Grip Interview". The whole narrative corpus was analyzed using the method developed by Auerbach and Silverstein, called Hypothesis-generating research. We identified four macro-processes in which the mediation function of the maternal meaning-making process is articulated: emotional regulation, collaboration in the therapeutic management, presentation of the disease and social sharing of the disease. The mediation function can act on two different levels: an intra-personal level, by fostering maternal elaboration of the disease; and an inter-personal level, by promoting the child's meaning making process and the actions to manage their disease, in accordance with the developmental competencies acquired by their children.