Adult-children's perspectives on a parent's hearing impairment and its impact on their relationship and communication

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the study was to describe third-party disability experienced by adult-children as a result of hearing impairment (HI) in a parent. Design: Using semi-structured interviews, participants were asked to describe the impact of a parent's HI on their relationship and communication. Interpretative phenomenological analysis, a qualitative method to explore participant's perceptions and viewpoints, was used as the method of analysis. Study sample: Twelve participants between the ages of 22 and 58 who each had a parent with confirmed HI who owned hearing aids. Results: Within the contextual factors of family relationships, communication situations, and the parent's personality, adult-children considered their coping strategies and feelings that arose as a result of the HI. Coping strategies included putting forth effort in communication, yelling as an ineffective communication strategy, and providing support to the parent with HI. The described feelings included frustration, uncertainty, and loss surrounding their communication and relationship with their parent with HI. These feelings arose as a result of implementing coping strategies, plus these feelings drove the employment of coping strategies. Conclusions: Adult-children of parents with HI experience third-party disability, however, the participation restrictions and activity limitations experienced by children appear less than experienced by spouses.

Key Words::

• Hearing impairment
• communication partners
• psychosocial effects
• qualitative research

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by a grant from the Oticon Foundation. The authors wish to thank Lise Lotte Bundesen and the Ida Institute faculty for the seminars, Enabling Communication Partnerships: Louise Hickson, Dafydd Stephens, and Sam Trychin for their inspiration, plus Karah Miller Gottschalk for assistance in data analysis and Margaret Barnett for assistance with the model. Portions of this article were presented at the Academy of Rehabilitative Audiology Institute (September 2012, Providence, USA).

Declaration of interest: The authors report no declarations of interest.

Supplementary material available online

Supplementary Appendix Interview guide to be found online at http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14992027.2015.1046089.