Siblings’ lived experience of their relationship with their brother or sister following First-Episode Psychosis (FEP)

As social support has been found to reduce the risk of relapse in young people experiencing psychosis and sibling relationships often last longer than any other relationship, it is envisaged that exploring the sibling relationship following FEP will contribute towards our understanding of a potential protective factor for the individual with FEP and also our understanding of non-affected siblings needs following FEP. Previous research on family members and FEP has mostly focused on parent and carer experiences with limited research exploring the sibling perspective. Therefore this present study aimed to explore the siblings’ lived experience of their relationship with their brother and/or sister following FEP. This study was qualitative in nature and utilised an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach (IPA). Seven siblings (aged 19-61) of individuals with a diagnosis of FEP were recruited from Detect, Ireland’s first early intervention centre for FEP and completed a semistructured interview. Three super-ordinate themes emerged from the data: ‘Reflecting on the Change in the Sibling relationship following FEP’ which encompassed three emergent themes: ‘The Search for Meaning’, ‘Who or Where is my Sibling?’ and ‘Making Sense of Emotional Reactions’. The second super-ordinate theme ‘Struggling to Reconnect the Sibling Relationship’ included three emergent themes: ‘Supporting the Sibling Relationship’, ‘Participants Coping Strategies’ and ‘Contemplating the Future of the Sibling Relationship’. The final superordinate theme: ‘The Existence of the Sibling Relationship within the Family System’ also encapsulated three emergent themes: ‘I’ became ‘We’, ‘The Protective Role of the Participant’ and ‘The Impact of Family on the Sibling Relationship’. Results highlight the negative impact of FEP on the sibling relationship, from the non-affected siblings’ perspective although some positive impacts were also described. With the exception of one unpublished quantitative study, this study is the first study to explore the siblings’ experience of the sibling relationship following their brother or sister being diagnosed with FEP. Due to the limitations of this qualitative study to draw generalisable findings to the broader population of non-affected siblings of those with FEP, further quantitative research is warranted in the various areas identified in the discussion.