Since the 1960s, hemodialysis has been a common intervention for children with end-stage renal disease. For weeks, months or years, children’s activities are disrupted because they must return to the hospital to be dialyzed about three times a week, for three or four hours. Their childhoods are characterized by on-going temporal disruptions, socio-spatial dislocations and intermittent technological dependence. Little is known about how children experience hospital-based hemodialysis.
The study’s purpose was to describe and interpret the children’s embodied situatedness in the temporal, spatial and technological regimes and relations of a hemodialysis unit. Time, space and technology were viewed as significant interrelated aspects of the unit and the unit was conceived as nested in the broader life contexts of the children. The theoretical framework merged concepts of sociology of children, human geographical and temporal perspectives and philosophy of technology. A focused ethnography with 11 children who received maintenance hemodialysis was undertaken at a Canadian pediatric urban hospital.
The dominant theme emerging from the study findings was the notion of the children doing technological time. The children’s temporal and socio-spatial positions were an effect of their technologically mediated embodiment and shaped their perspectives, evaluations and expectations. Their accounts revealed that the rituals and routines of the unit were experienced as long and boring. Their situatedness also was comprised of socio-spatial segregation and isolation due to being tethered to hemodialysis machines in the unit’s corners. Adaptations included resignation, resistance and waiting in the short and long term to be released from hemodialysis. Having negative and positive perceptions and responses, the children held multiple and conflicting meanings about the unit’s timespace. The findings suggest that crucial changes in practices and policies are essential to envision ways to create with children an overall positive place that merges and balances technological care with child focused care.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/34981 |
| Date | 08 January 2013 |
| Creators | Zitzelsberger, Hilde |
| Contributors | Peter, Elizabeth Helen |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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