O "Ir à luta!" no exercício da parentalidade por pais de pessoas em condição de deficiência: um estudo em Grounded Theory

Abstract

The diagnosis of a disability is a moment of crisis that affects not only the life trajectory of a person but also the family group, requiring parents to adapt to the condition of the child and the demands arising from it, which can generate overload and stress for them in the exercise of parental care. On the other hand, the negative effects of these variables will depend, among others, on the social support received and the actions adopted by them in order to change the unpleasant effect of stressful conditions. Hence, the aim of the study was to formulate a representative model of the exercise of parenting by parents of children and adults with intellectual or multiple disabilities, as well as to describe them through the identification of sociodemographic variables; to identify the strategies adopted by them and the factors that influence them facing their child's disability condition; to analyze the consequences of these strategies and their relationship with the conditions that structure the phenomenon under study and to understand how the exercise of parenting is configured in this group. To that end, the Grounded Theory was applied as methodological approach. Through theoretical sampling two groups of parents were set up, group I with six participants (one father and five mothers) and group II with three mothers. The main strategy for data collection was the interview based on a semi-structured script composed of two parts: I - Sociodemographic Data with eight closed questions and II - Specific Questions with three open questions, administered to participants in the period of August 2015 to June 2016. The collected data were transcribed and later analyzed according to the open, axial and selective coding processes, applying the paradigm with its components (action, condition and consequence) and the conditional/consequential matrix as tools to identify the phenomenon in the data. From the analyzed data it was possible to access the theoretical model The “Go For It!” in the exercise of parenting by parents of disabled people, which was structured in the interaction of two macrocategories: BEING FATHER/MOTHER OF A DISABLED CHILD, which approached the process of subjective adaptation of these parents in the exercise of their parenting and GO FOR IT! as a practical dimension, which focused the strategies adopted by the parents of these children and adults. Thus, the proposed model made possible the understanding of the parents' adaptation process, their movement between acceptance and rejection of the child's disability condition and their identity mediated by the interaction with the child and with other social actors throughout the care trajectory of their child.