Experiences of Mothers of Children with Hearing Impairment: A Study at the Ashanti School for the Deaf, Jamasi-Ashanti Region, Ghana

Abstract

Most deaf children are born to parents with hearing. The negative impact of caring for children with chronic illness has been identified among others and as such impedes their own health and well-being. How parents deal with these challenges is significant for their overall well-being and as a result, this study seeks to explore the experiences of mothers of children with hearing impairment. Exploratory- descriptive qualitative design was selected for the study using in-depth face-to-face interviews. Purposive sampling was used to select participants. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim manually, cleaned and sorted into a Word document after which data was exported to ATLAS.ti version 7 where themes and subthemes were generated and analyzed. Overall, 4 major themes and 12 subthemes were obtained from the study. The major themes included; information sharing experiences of mothers, garnering resources by mothers, mothers’ early responses and cultural and religious cooperation among mothers and healthcare professionals. The study revealed that the participants employed different methods of communicating with their children, either through sign language and or written language. Mothers also disclosed that they were able to provide for themselves all their basic needs primarily because they had some means of employment, however, they occasionally received some form of assistance from other individuals, social and religious groups. Additionally, the mothers were ready anytime to respond to the needs of their children with assistance from school-appointed representatives. Finally, the mothers disclosed that although they had diverse religious and cultural practices, they do not interfere with their responsibilities as parents while caring for their children in healthcare settings and as a result, there was positive cooperation, respect among themselves and all healthcare professionals. All mothers disclosed experiencing some form of challenges as parents caring for children with chronic illnesses. However, they also appreciated the need to cooperate with different professionals for health information and occasionally seek financial support to improve upon their own health and wellbeing.