Emotional ‘journey’ of street beggars with vision impairment: a study from Ghana

Abstract

This study sought to understand the experiences of street beggars with vision impairment in Ghana. The study employed a qualitative research approach specifically phenomenology. Twenty-five (25) participants were purposively sampled from three (3) busy streets in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. Participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide and data collected was analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Findings showed that visually impaired street beggars experienced personal losses such as jobs, relationships and independence. In addition, the results showed that participants experienced daily challenges with regards to street begging. Further, street beggars with vision impairment reported a range of emotional experiences due to vision loss and street begging. The findings are discussed in relation to enhancing care and management of street beggars with visual impairment in Ghana.

Points of Interest

• Persons with vision loss are likely to struggle with the disability due to associated challenges such as loss of jobs, relationships, independency etc and these are likely to negatively affect their emotions.

• The study found that persons with vision loss had to resort to street begging due to limited or lack of support from family in order to meet basic needs.

• Street begging has been associated with some challenges such as accidents, harassment, low self-esteem and others. The participants in this study face daily challenges with street begging as they experience verbal abuse by passersby. Hence, the interaction of experience of vision loss and challenges with street begging could negatively affect their mental health.

• Based on the findings, the researchers suggest that persons with disability in Ghana would require some form of psychosocial support to help them deal and adapt to their disabilities and also develop new skills appropriate to their level of functioning.

Keywords:

• Vision loss
• street begging
• lived experiences
• emotional well-being
• quality of life

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.