2016 Volume 25 Issue 3 Pages 9-16
We conducted a qualitative and descriptive research among seven mothers with stay-home, medically dependent children with profound multiple disabilities. The aims of this study were to understand the mothers’ thoughts on their husbands’ performance in paternal responsibilities and to consider how to offer nursing support to these families from the perspective of family management.
The following categories were extracted from the study: (1) relief felt by a father when his child with disabilities receives affection, (2) respecting the childcare the father performs, despite work being his primary responsibility, (3) desire to maintain the current cooperative system for raising the child and doing housework, (4) inability to leave the disabled child to the father without concern, (5) appreciation of the husband’s respect for the mother for her efforts in tending to the needs of the child with disabilities, (6) appreciation of the husband for giving emotional support by listening, (7) occasional irritation due to not being on the same page as the husband in terms of caring for their child with disability, (8) willingness to understand the difficulty of performing paternal responsibilities, and (9) feeling of having no other option but to live together each day to the best of their ability.
Nursing support, for families, needs to focus on the differences in parents’ feelings about medically dependent children with profound multiple disabilities when admitted to advanced-care medical facilities. Support should also facilitate contact between fathers and children and enable them to express such feelings during these times.
