Factors contributing to delay in seeking rehabilitative services for children with Cerebral palsy at St. John of God: Childhood services
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Date
2009-12-04
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Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
Abstract
Most children with disabilities are left at home dependent for their rest of their time despite the various health services that the hospitals are providing to make these children as independent as possible. This study was aimed at exploring the factors contributing to delay in seeking rehabilitative services for children with cerebral palsy at St John of God, in Mzuzu city. The study aimed at exploring factors contributing to delay in seeking rehabilitative services for children with cerebral palsy. Specific objectives were to: assess parents knowledge on causes of cerebral palsy ,to identify first treatment parent opt for after discovering about their Childs condition, identifying psychosocial factors contributing to delay in seeking rehabilitative services from health care facilities and exploring myths and beliefs contributing to the delay in seeking rehabilitative services. This study used a descriptive qualitative design and convenient sampling. Ten mothers of children with cerebral palsy who started rehabilitative services at the age of two years or more were interviewed. An interview guide was used for data collection and a voice recorder was used to record all the interviews conducted. Data was analyzed using content analysis. To make sure that the participant's rights are protected, each participant was interviewed separately and no name was given instead code numbers were used. The risks and benefits of this study were explained and the participant gave an informed consent before starting the interviews. Results from the study will be disseminated to Kamuzu College of nursing (KCN) library, St. John of God research centre and Save Our Soul rehabilitation centre. The findings of this study have indicated that there are several factors that contribute to the delay in seeking rehabilitative services. Most mothers new about the rehabilitative services but stopped due to lack of knowledge about cerebral palsy, importance of rehabilitating these children, lack of motivation from the health workers, their spouses, their relations and the community were also identified to have contributed to the delay. Some delayed due to stigma while others were thinking that this condition can't be helped with hospital treatment. There is a need to improve rehabilitative services for children with cerebral palsy by increasing number of outreach clinics in the community so that people are able to access the services, educating parents what this condition is all about and importance of rehabilitative services, follow up of these children as soon as they start rehabilitative services and encourage involvement of both parents in child care.