Mother Concerns and Coping Behaviors Toward Children with Febrile Convulsion: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: Mother of febrile convulsion (FC) children reported high concerns adverse consequences in daily life and more likely used maladaptive coping behaviors rather than the father The previous quantitative studies about concerns and coping behaviors are still less satisfactory since those studies only found two concerns with two consequences that occur in mother life and no explanation about their coping behaviors Therefore it necessary to conduct a study that can explore in-depth the experience of mother concerns and coping behaviors toward their children with febrile convulsion Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore and describe mother concerns and coping behavior experience toward their children with febrile convulsion Method: Descriptive phenomenology approach with purposive sampling technique were used to captures the essence of mother concerns toward children with febrile convulsion in Bali Indonesia Face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted until data-saturated by applying the Francis method and using semi-structured interview guide with open-ended questions Interviews were tape-recorded and field notes were taken following each interview Colaizzi’s (1978) seven steps were used to analyze the verbatim transcripts Credibility transferability dependability and confirmability by Lincoln and Guba (1994) were applied to ensuring the trustworthiness of results Results: Data were collected from 20 mothers who have experience in taking care children with febrile seizures at least 2 weeks after discharge from the hospital Three cluster theme “living with the vulnerable” “living for bear the burden” and “living to struggle” and ten subthemes emerged from the analysis Discussion: The lived experience of mother concerns and coping behaviors toward children with febrile convulsion had similarities with the experience of parental concerns towards children with fever and epilepsy or chronic illness Mothers seemed to share similar perceptions and beliefs that their children are vulnerable despite the facts have shown these two health problems are different They also seemed to share the similar burden as well as similar coping behaviors Although the mother tries to rise up against all existing problems she tends to use the avoidance coping mechanism and emotion-focused coping that made her adapt negatively to problems encountered Conclusion: Concerns “living with the vulnerable” “living for bear the burden” and “living to struggle” was perceived as the essence of lived experience among mother whose children had febrile convulsion These findings emphasize the need for further health education and social support to rectify the mothers’ misperception reduce perceived concerns and burdens as well as guiding mothers to use more adaptive coping mechanisms toward children with febrile convulsion Health care professionals should play a significant role in encouraging families to be more care each other and providing trustworthy information to mother to deal with febrile convulsion in order to prevent excessive concerns burden and maladaptive coping behaviors Keywords: febrile convulsion mother concerns coping behaviors phenomenology

Date of Award	2018 Feb 9
Original language	English
Supervisor	Mei-Chih Huang (Supervisor)