2021 Volume 30 Pages 43-51
Secondary abstract The purpose of this study was to clarify, while examining experiences of mothers, the process of announcing characteristics and diagnostic names to their children, who had Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) not having intellectual disabilities and subsequently to obtain suggestions for nursing care. A semi-structured interview was conducted with research participants consisting of ten mothers who had children diagnosed with ASD, adopting a qualitative-descriptive analysis. This analysis of the results extracted the following six categories: “wavering in accepting children with characteristics”, “facing the characteristics of their children”, “approval and suggestion of children”, “coordination with their family and people around them”, “disease notification and mental conflicts”, and “stay by their children, with consideration, who would grow in self-reliance”. It was clarified that the process of announcement had six stages. Nurses being involved with empathy through an understanding of the mothers’ experiences, nurses are required to support mothers so that they could retrace the path of the process for the notification of characteristics and diagnostic name. Furthermore, it has been suggested that continuous nursing cares are imperative to support emotional wavering due to experiences and the decision making of mothers, where mothers notified their children of the characteristics and diagnosis.
