Uncertainty in mothers' care for their ill children.

The purpose of this paper is to present the experience of mothers as they cared for their young children during illness episodes, prior to a diagnosis of asthma in the children. A grounded theory study was conducted with 12 families with asthmatic children, involving three rounds of interviews. In these interviews the mothers revealed that the prediagnosis phase of their children's illness was an overwhelming time for them. Groping in the dark is the core variable that reflects (a) the harrowing experiences of sleepless nights while mothers watched their children struggle to breathe, (b) the wearing toll incurred while helping their children through seemingly unending illnesses, and (c) their increasingly intensified search for answers to resolve their children's health crisis.