Experiences of Omani Families in Taking Care and Supporting Self- Management of Mental Illness: A Qualitative Descriptive Study

In Arabic culture, family plays a significant role in managing and taking care of their members who live with mental illness. In the Sultanate of Oman, unfortunately, there is limited knowledge on how families take care of their mentally ill members and how to support them to self-manage themselves regarding their mental disorders. In this context, there is an urgent need to conduct this study, which aims to gain a deep understanding and knowledge of how Omani families take care of their members who live with mental illness, and how these families support their patients to perform self-management for their mental illness. The methodological approach to this study will be a qualitative descriptive method. Data from Omani families who take care of a mentally ill family member will be collected for this study, mainly from Sultan Qaboos University Hospital and Almasarrah Hospital in Muscat. Demographic and qualitative data will be collected from the eligible participant through semi-structured interviews and will be analyzed using the qualitative content analysis method. Proper measures will be taken to ensure participants? human rights, confidentiality, and anonymity. Other procedures will be conducted to ensure trustworthiness (i.e., credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability) of the data descriptions and findings.