Families Coping With Disability Due to Brain Injury in Oman

Samir Al-Adawi,Zakiya Al-Busaidi,David T Burke,Sara Al-Adawi

doi:10.1177/2158244012457400

Samir Al-Adawi, Zakiya Al-Busaidi + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244012457400

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Journal: SAGE Open	Publication Date: Jul 1, 2012
Citations: 18	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: Sultan Qaboos University, Emory University

Abstract

Little is known about primary caregivers’ perceptions of a relative who has sustained abruptly personality changes following traumatic brain injury (TBI) in non-Western populations. To help appreciate the diversity of perceptions of disability outside the biomedical setting, the present discourse highlights how primary caregivers construct sequelae of TBI in Oman. A qualitative case study with an ethnographic approach was conducted using semistructured interviews. Six caregivers from two families of patients with TBI were interviewed to garner description of lay beliefs within a rural community in Oman related to the experience of family carers with a relative suffering from a brain injury. The caregivers interpreted their relatives’ predicament through the local idiom of distress involving belief in spirit infestation and ensorcellment. The present qualitative study supports the view that when a family member incurs neurobehavioral impairments, the coping processes of the caregivers are heavily influenced by cultural concepts of health and illness. Such attributions are discussed in terms of specific sociocultural forces within Omani society.

Highlights

Emerging evidence suggests that acquired brain injury supplants infectious diseases and reproductive, maternal, and child health as a leading cause of global mortality, and accounts for a considerable degree of disability and economic loss (Al-Adawi et al, 2004; Hyder, Wunderlich, Puvanachandra, Gururaj, & Kobusingye, 2007; Lopez, Mathers, Ezzati, Jamison, & Murray, 2006)
The aim of this study is to describe the reactions and adaptation of caregivers in Oman, a country in which the family is still expected to play an important role in social organization using in-depth interviews with three carers of victim or survivor of brain injury
BB is a 36-year-old Omani man who was rendered unconscious after falling from a date tree in a rural region of Oman

Summary

Introduction

Emerging evidence suggests that acquired brain injury supplants infectious diseases and reproductive, maternal, and child health as a leading cause of global mortality, and accounts for a considerable degree of disability and economic loss (Al-Adawi et al, 2004; Hyder, Wunderlich, Puvanachandra, Gururaj, & Kobusingye, 2007; Lopez, Mathers, Ezzati, Jamison, & Murray, 2006). Significant levels of psychological distress that mimic symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as a preoccupation with prolonged and unremitting denial, hysteria, and anger are common occurrences (Al-Adawi et al, 2005; Anderson et al, 2009; Machamer, Temkin, & Dikmen, 2002; Ponsford, Olver, Ponsford, & Nelms, 2003). This has lead to the development of support services to alleviate the burden of care on relatives (Ponsford et al, 2003)

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