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Barriers to Residential Planning: Perspectives from Selected Older Parents Caring for Adult Offspring with Lifelong Disabilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2010

Christine Joffres*
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
*
Requests, etc., Dr. Christine Joffres, Department of Community Health & Epidemiology, Dalhousie University, 5849 University Avenue, Halifax, N. S. B3H 4H7. cejoffre@is.dal.ca

Abstract

This paper presents a typology of older parents caring for adult offspring with lifelong disabilities, as well as barriers to residential planning from the perspectives of older parents caring for adult offspring with lifelong disabilities. Project participants included 54 older parents and one grandparent (all aged 60+). Information was collected via focus groups in six provinces across Canada. Transcripts were analysed using different analytical procedures, including pattern identification, clustering of conceptual groupings, identification of relationships between variables, constant comparisons, and theoretical memos. Older parents' reluctance to engage in the planning of future living options was found to be multi-factorial and linked to the macro- and micro-systems within which these families were embedded.

Résumé

Ce manuscrit présente une typologie de parents âgés qui s'occupent d'enfants adultes ayant des déficiences permanentes et des barrières que ces parents perçoivent vis à vis de la planification résidentielle de leurs enfants adultes avec des déficiences permanentes. Les participants de ce projet sont des parents âgés (60 ans et plus). L'information présentée a été recueillie par l'intermédiaire de six groupes de discussion à travers le Canada. Les transcriptions ont été analysées avec différentes procédures d'analyse, y compris l'identification de schémas, le regroupement de concepts similaires, l'identification de relations entre les variables, des comparaisons constantes, et des memoranda théoriques. Les résultats indiquent que la réticence des parents à s'engager dans la planification résidentielle de leurs enfants était causée par une multitude de facteurs reliés aux macro- et micro-systèmes dans lesquels ces familles vivaient.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 2002

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