Experiences of mothers caring for a child with an intellectual disability during the COVID‐19 pandemic in the Netherlands

Abstract

Background: During the first COVID-19 lockdown period, various restrictions led to diminished access to both educational and professional support systems for children with an intellectual disability and their families. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences and needs of parents caring for a child with an intellectual disability during the first lockdown period in the Netherlands.

Method: Five mothers caring for a child with an intellectual disability participated in this qualitative study. The participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The interviews lasted between 26 and 48 min. The interview recordings were transcribed verbatim, and the transcripts were analysed thematically.

Results: Three overarching themes emerged: (1) We need to stay healthy, which centres on the mother's urge to protect their child's well-being; (2) We make it work, which provides insight into how the mothers were handling the drastic changes in their family; and (3) My child's and family's place in the world, which focuses on the mothers' experienced position in the world around them.

Conclusions: The current study provides valuable insights into the experiences and needs of mothers caring for a child with an intellectual disability during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rights

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/] , which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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Identifiers

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jir.12859

Repository URI

http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/243181/