A head injury is an unexpected and potentially life-threatening event that frequently results in physical, cognitive, and emotional changes in the patient. As a result, a head injury affects the whole family, and mothers and wives may be potentially at risk because they tend to assume the primary caregiving role post-trauma. Current thinking is that a person's ability to restore a sense of meaning in life is an important aspect of psychological adjustment following the traumatic injury of a loved one. However, little is currently known about the process of finding meaning during the early phase of recovery. The purpose of this qualitative study was therefore to generate a theory about how mothers and wives find meaning during the early phase of recovery following the head injury of their loved one. / Grounded theory methodology was used to explore the experience of 5 mothers and 9 wives whose family member had suffered a moderate or severe head injury. Participants were recruited from three major Level I Canadian trauma centres using inclusion criteria and theoretical sampling to achieve theoretical completeness. They were interviewed on two occasions: 1 to 5 weeks and again 6 to 8 weeks following their family member's head injury. Iterative analysis and constant comparative methods were used throughout the study and the data revealed a process of finding meaning embedded in three distinct phases: "Focusing on the here and now", "Expanding perspective", and "Resuming life". The process of finding meaning was characterized by an emerging fit between the participants' perception of their current situation and their pre-trauma value and belief system. This process helped participants to find a new way of thinking about their world and to find a new order and sense of direction in their lives. / The findings of this study augment our theoretical understanding of family members' psychological responses to traumatic events, and may be helpful to guide nursing care of the whole family during the early phase of recovery following a head injury.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.84443 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Van Neste-Kenny, Jocelyne |
| Contributors | Pepler, Carolyn (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (School of Nursing.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001975139, proquestno: AAINQ88593, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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