Elsevier

Journal of Pediatric Nursing

Volume 20, Issue 4, July–August 2005, Pages 288-297
Journal of Pediatric Nursing

International Pediatric Nursing
Being Invigorated in Parenthood: Parents' Experiences of Being Supported by Professionals When Having a Disabled Child

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2005.04.015Get rights and content

The purpose of the study was to know the meaning of parents' experiences of being supported by professionals when having a child with disability. Data were obtained through unstructured interviews with 16 parents within 10 families and analyzed by a phenomenological–hermeneutic approach. Parents narrated experiences of being supported and not being supported, and the findings are presented as contrasting meanings. Being supported by professionals means gaining confidence as a parent and having the child seen as valuable. This is interpreted as being invigorated in parenthood, where sharing the mutual task and goal, which is the child's best, with professionals is a crucial aspect. The meaning of experiences of lack of support illuminates the consequences for the entire family's well-being and the struggle parents experience to gain confidence as parents and recognition of the child as valuable.

Section snippets

Subjects

Sixteen parents, 10 mothers and 6 fathers, within 10 families participated in the study. They cared for 11 children (between the ages of 2 and 16 years) at home. Two of these children were siblings. The children had different diagnoses, but none of them had a terminal illness. Nine of the children had both extensive bodily impairment and mental retardation, another child was mentally retarded, and another child has extensive bodily impairment. All families received care allowance from the

Naive Interpretation

One part of the text is about the experiences of being supported and how this support, in various ways, relieves daily care burdens, such as uncertainty, which is inherent in care of a disabled child, practical burdens, and irresolution about how to support the child's development. This relief is interpreted as giving a greater confidence as parent and hope for the child's future. A greater part of the text, however, is about the lack of support and its serious consequences to the family. This

Comprehensive Understanding

Results of the study reveal how influential and important it is for parents with a disabled child to experience support from professionals and how devastating it is not to experience this support. Our comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of support is namely becoming invigorated in parenthood in the context of having a disabled child. Becoming invigorated in parenthood evolved out of experiences of gaining confidence as a parent and having a child who is seen as valuable. These

Acknowledgments

The research was supported by grants from The Order of St. John, The Foundation of Foreningssparbanken, Sjuharad, and University College of Borås, Sweden.

The authors thank the parents for participating in the study and Ms Patricia Shrimpton of Umeå University for revising the English.

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