Abstract:
According to an epidemiological study conducted by WHO across 55 developing and
under-developed countries including Pakistan, prevalence of Mild ID was higher among the
children within the age range of 6-10 years and Pakistan lies at higher upper limit when
compared to other developing and neighboring nations such as India and Bangladesh (Durkin,
Hasan, & Hasan, 1998; Fujiura et al., 2005). As portrayed by literature, being a parent of
children diagnosed with disability has significant impact on their lives. Their role as a primary
caregiver puts them in a unique position which requires further exploration. Undertaking this role
can be difficult for the individuals due to the physical, emotional, and financial constraints
experienced by them, functional impairment of the child and his/her continuous dependence on
parents (Kudlicka, Clare, & Hindle, 2014). Hence, literature emphasized on the consideration of
understanding the phenomenon of caregiving of children with mild ID in Pakistani Population as
it has significant impact on the lives of their parents/caregivers across all domains and the area
has been overlooked in the already existing research. Some of the themes that emerged were
their efforts towards coming to terms with the child’s diagnosis, their making sense of or
developing an understanding of their child’s condition and their role as caregivers, caregiving
challenges and their impact on different dimensions of their lives such as physiological,
psychological, and social and their coping strategies that facilitates their role as caregivers. Most
of these findings were in line with the already present literature. However, this research
expanded on the experience of the fathers as well along with its comparison with what mothers
go through as caregivers. Moreover, this study also emphasized on the caregiving specifically for
children with mild ID which was not specifically catered by the literature. Hence, the findings
Parents’ Caregiving Experiences
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are expected to be useful for communicating the meaning of the phenomenon that was previously
overlooked in the literature. (Creswell, 1998; Dahlberg et al., 2001; Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2002).
