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Menstrual Hygiene Management: Challenges and Coping Strategies for Adolescents with Disabilities in the Kumasi Metro of Ghana

Enoch, Acheampong
Nadutey, Alberta
Afful, Barbara Fosua
Anokye, Reindolf
2020

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Purpose: Effective menstrual hygiene management is vital to the health, well- being, dignity, empowerment, mobility and productivity of girls and women. This study was conducted to ascertain menstrual hygiene management challenges and coping strategies of adolescents with disabilities in the Kumasi Metro of Ghana.

 

Method: An exploratory study design with qualitative approach was employed to select 18 participants. Data was collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, and then transcribed and categorised into specific themes.

 

Results: Females with visual impairment had difficulty in maintaining good menstrual hygiene because of problems in detecting menstrual blood, inability to fix sanitary pads appropriately and wash underwear properly, and anxiety and stress from not knowing whether their period has started. The problems of those with physical impairment were related to inaccessible washrooms, long hours of being seated on the part of wheelchair-users, and difficulty in fixing sanitary pads for those with upper limb impairment. For those with hearing impairment, the main challenge was the communication barrier between them and their significant others whenever they needed help.

 

Conclusion: There are common challenges faced by all girls across the globe with regard to menstrual hygiene management. Adolescent females with disability however face additional challenges with regard to MHM. Those with physical disability encounter accessibility challenges, while the main challenge for the deaf and those with speech problems is communication. The visually impaired live in anxiety due to fear of staining their clothes.

Towards an Inclusive Society in Cameroon: Understanding the Perceptions of Students in University of Yaounde II about Persons with Disabilities

Opoku, Maxwell Peprah
Badu, Eric
Moitui, oash Ntenga
2015

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Purpose: Disability cuts across every society and all spheres of life. For an inclusive society, it is important to understand people’s perceptions about persons with disabilities. However, there seems to be limited information, particularly about the perceptions of students who are the generation of future policy-makers. This study examines the perceptions of students in the University of Yaoundé II about persons with disabilities in Cameroon.

 

Methods: A cross sectional study design using quantitative methods was employed with a sample of students at the University of Yaoundé II. A questionnaire was used to gather information from 500 students selected by simple random sampling. The data analysis involved descriptive and inferential statistics at 95% CI.

 

Results: Among the participants, 51.8% were males, 89.2% were single and the average age was 24.9 years. Findings showed that 69.8% did not know about the actual population of persons with disabilities in Cameroon, though 14.6% had relatives with disabilities. None of the students perceived disability as a contagious condition, and 79.8% agreed that education had influenced their perceptions about persons with disabilities. Gender and education level had significant relationship with changes in perception (OR=1.8; p=0.01 and OR=1.91; p=0.04). However, 13.5% were unwilling to work with a person with disability in the future.

 

Conclusion: The findings suggest that issues of disability have not been taken into consideration in Cameroon. Therefore, there is the need for education and sensitisation of the general population towards disability. Additionally, policy- makers should factor persons with disabilities into national strategic plans, in order to ensure an inclusive society.

Knowledge and Beliefs about Ear and Hearing Health among Mothers of Young Children in a Rural Community in South India

NARAYANSAMY, M
RAMKUMA, V
NAGARAJAN, R
2014

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Purpose: To study the knowledge and beliefs about ear and hearing healthcare among mothers from a rural community.

 

Method: In 1 week, 6 focus group discussions were conducted across 6 villages of a district in Tamil Nadu in southern India. The participants were 60 mothers who had children below 5 years of age.

 

Results: Mothers in this rural community had information about some aspects of ear and hearing healthcare. They were aware that use of hairpins and safety- pins to clean ears was harmful; they were knowledgeable about ways to identify hearing ability (child responds to name call, verbal instructions, and startles at loud sounds); and, conditions like consanguinity and malnutrition of expectant mothers were recognised as risk factors for hearing loss. However, misconceptions also existed. The practice of pouring herbal juices to remove insects in the ear continued; there was the perception that all children with a hearing problem were “deaf”, and a lack of awareness about the possibility of partial/unilateral hearing loss. Regarding the age of identification, mothers believed that a child’s ability to speak and the ability to hear was pertinent to assess hearing. None of the mothers related normal speech development to normal hearing.

 

Conclusion: For the success of a community-based hearing screening programme, it is important to utilise the existing knowledge of the mothers, and simultaneously attempt to fill in gaps in knowledge and clarify misconceptions. These measures will facilitate greater compliance from the community in achieving the goals of early identification and early intervention for problems of hearing loss.

Training CBR Personnel in South Africa to contribute to the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities

RULE, S
2013

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Purpose: Recent conceptualisations of community based rehabilitation include empowerment of persons with disabilities as a key activity. This article reports on a study which explored the training of mid-level CBR workers in South Africa, with a specific focus on the ability of the course participants to address the oppression and empowerment of persons with disabilities.

 

Method: Over a three-year period, one cycle of action research was conducted in a non-government organisation that conducts mid-level CBR training in South Africa. Data collection methods included in-depth interviews with staff, students and past graduates of the course, document analysis, participatory rural appraisal techniques and two focus group discussions with the students’ clients.

 

Results: Personnel, who had been trained in CBR before the year 2003, were found to have some difficulty in explaining the social model of disability and the oppression of persons with disabilities at a cultural and structural level. It was noted that after changes were implemented in the CBR course, the students had an orientation to working with, rather than for, persons with disabilities. They began to understand the complexities of empowerment and also engaged in social action to address the oppression of persons with disabilities.

 

Conclusions: The CBR Guidelines require a new skill-mix in mid-level CBR personnel. This study illustrates a possible training approach which can contribute to the development of these skills.

Knowledge, Beliefs and Perception of Leprosy

SINGH, S
SINHA, A K
BANERJEE, B
JASWAL, N
2013

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Purpose: For intervention to be effective, it is essential that the knowledge, beliefs and perception of a specific social group are taken into account. This is particularly true of leprosy where the problems of social stigma and ostracism are more prominent than the disease itself. There are many misconceptions about the cause, methods of transmission, and treatment.

 

The main objectives of the study were to examine the socio-demographic profile of persons with leprosy and to explore their knowledge, beliefs and perception about the disease and its initial symptoms, within a specific socio-cultural milieu.

 

Method: Semi-structured interviews were held with a persons with leprosy at various clinics and care-homes for affected persons in and around Chandigarh, India. Those who had completed their treatment and those who were still undergoing treatment were included in the study. Data collection was done through case studies and in-depth interviews.

 

Results: The name of the disease varied across different geo-cultural zones. Many respondents who were afflicted with only red patches and had no ulcers, believed that they suffered from a skin disease which would turn into leprosy if proper medication was not received. The perception of 64.9 % of the respondents was that leprosy resulted from supernatural causes like God’s punishment, karma, and sin.

 

Conclusion: There is a need to educate persons with leprosy and their families about the etiology of the disease.

Parental Stress in Raising a Child with Disabilities in India

GUPTA, V B
MEHROTRA, P
MEHROTRA, N
2012

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Purpose: To determine parenting stress and its determinants among parents of children with disabling conditions in India.

 

Methods: The Parenting Stress Index – short form and a few open ended questions were administered to a convenience sample of sixty-six patient families in July, 2009 in the cities of New Delhi and Faridabad regions of Northern India through six non- governmental organizations (NGOs) that serve children with disabling conditions.

 

Results: Female sex of the child was associated with higher stress related to failure of the child to meet parent’s expectations and to satisfy the parents in their parenting role. Parents engaged in more lucrative and prestigious occupations had more stress than parents engaged in less prestigious and lucrative occupations irrespective of their income. Many parents reported receiving little support from their extended families in taking care of their child. Religion was found to be a common coping resource used by the parents.

 

Conclusion and Implications: Higher parenting stress in parents of girls raises the possibility of abuse and neglect. Little support from informal family resources underscores the need for developing formal resources for supporting the parents. The specific resources of parenting stress among parents of different socioeconomic status should be explored in future studies so that appropriate interventions can be planned.

Functional Social Skills of Adults with Intellectual Disability

UMADEVI, V
SUKUMARAN, P
2012

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Purpose: The present study aimed to find the level of functional social skills of adults with intellectual disability, and attempted to analyse these skills with respect to gender, level of disability, type of school attended and number of years of schooling.

 

Method: Descriptive method of research was employed for the study. The study sample consisted of 100 adults with intellectual disability, randomly selected from various special schools which provide vocational training in Kottayam district of Kerala state, in South India. Data on social skills of these individuals were collected through a standardised Functional Social Skills Assessment Scale developed by the authors. The data were analysed through arithmetic mean, standard deviation, independent t-test and one-way analysis of variance.

 

Results: The results indicated that only 48% of the adults with intellectual disability in the study sample possessed functional social skills.

Attitudes of Parents towards Children with Specific Learning Disabilities

CHANDRAMUKI, D
VENKATAKRISHNASHASTRY, I
VRANDA, M N
2012

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Purpose: This study explored parental attitudes towards children with specific learning disabilities.

 

Method: The study sample comprised parents of 60 children (30 boys and 30 girls) with Specific Learning Disability (SLD) who attend the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Out-Patient Department at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India. The attitudes of parents were assessed using the Parental Attitude Scale.

 

Results: The results revealed significant differences related to gender of the children on various domains of the scale.

 

Conclusion: The study highlights the need to educate parents to lower their expectations for children with specific learning disabilities, and to strengthen the social support network of these children’s families.

Disability and development: is the rights model of disability valid in the Arab region? An evidence-based field survey in Lebanon and Jordan

NAGATA, Kozue Kay
2008

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This paper reviews the process and outcome of constructing a "rights model of disability" which is culturally specific to Jordan and Lebanon. The objective of the empirical part was, to survey the current level of attitudes of non-disabled people towards their disabled fellows in Jordan, and to compare the attitudes of Lebanon's university students towards five different categories of disabled people (mentally disabled people, psycho-socially disabled people, physically disabled people, hearing impaired people and visually impaired people) to highlight the variations and diversity among them. It also examined the relationship between the attitudes and various demographic and social characteristics of the respondents. The set of findings was further tested and triangulated through meta-analysis of individual views expressed in the qualitative studies.

In Jordan, the attitude of 191 randomly selected non-disabled people was studied, using a Scale of Attitudes towards Disabled Persons (SADP). The participants from 4 communities of Jordan, exhibited overall negative attitudes towards disabled people. Socio-economic-demographic characteristics showed almost no difference regarding their attitudes towards disabled people.

In Lebanon, a more complex scale, composed of four sub-scales, namely a, "Baseline Survey of Student Attitudes towards People with a Disability" was used, to survey 94 university students' attitudes towards five different categories of disabled people, and a set of indices for future comparison was constructed. The results indicated the same pattern of gradations of attitude differences (found in other countries) towards persons with physical or sensory impairments (better), intellectual impairment (middle) and mental illness (worse). The main findings of this empirical field research showed particularly negative public attitudes towards people with intellectual impairment and mental illness in Lebanon.

Finally, the validity of the proposed rights model of disability and the empirical findings of this study, were further examined and co-validated through analysis of the collective views of those who took part in the questionnaire surveys and the participatory focus group discussions, which took place in Lebanon in 2005 and 2007, and in Jordan in 2005, as well as a series of intensive on-line and/or telephone interviews of a few informants comprising of disabled persons and experts. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.

 

Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal, Vol 19, No 1

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