Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Dissertation - NSU Access Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice

Advisor

Martha J. Morgan Sanders

Committee Member

Gail M. Johnson

Committee Member

Lynne Schrum

Keywords

Developmental Disability and Communication, Developmental Disability and Family Caregivers, Developmental Disability and Stigmatization, Developmental Disability and Diagnostic Overshadowing, Phenomenology

Abstract

This applied dissertation was designed to discover new insights regarding the lived experiences of family caregivers of hospitalized individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The peer-reviewed literature obtained via the Internet, using the ERIC descriptors, resulted in very limited and outdated research on individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Several research studies indicated that research on the intellectual and developmentally disabled was not readily available and even less research was conducted on the family caregivers of this group. The literature review was used to develop research questions pertaining to communication issues between family caregivers and hospital personnel. The research method selected was a hermeneutic phenomenological approach.

The study took place in a northeastern city in the United States. Participants were recruited through an organization that provided a vast array of services to the intellectually and developmentally disabled population. Open-ended questions were used in face-to-face interviews. A number of potential probes were developed. Ten participants were selected. The face-to-face interviews were audiotape recorded. The audiotape recordings were transcribed and coded. The codes were then collapsed to determine emerging broader themes. Throughout the study, the family caregivers were consulted to ensure the information revealed reflected their experiences.

Four themes emerged from the interviews: need for advocacy, need for better communication, sense of abandonment, and lack of confidence. The findings indicated the need for better education at the prelicensure level as well as continuing education and support for staff nurses to safely care for this population.

Download
To access this thesis/dissertation you must have a valid nova.edu OR mynsu.nova.edu email address and create an account for NSUWorks.

Free My Thesis

If you are the author of this work and would like to grant permission to make it openly accessible to all, please click the Free My Thesis button.

Share

COinS
 
Dissertation of Distinction