Socio-Cultural Representations and Therapeutic Itineraries of Parents of Autistic Children Followed in the INSP’s Children’s Mental Health Services

Abstract

Pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) remain little known to populations in developing countries. In black Africa their social representations remain strongly influenced by local belief systems. The general objective of this study was to understand the perceptions and representations of Ivorian parents vis-à-vis PDD. This was a mixed (qualitative and quantitative) prospective cross-sectional study with a descriptive aim that involved a sample of 49 parents. The sampling was of the qualitative type by multiple cases with reasoned choice by saturation. Our results showed that male parents were mostly aged between 40 - 49 years (48.98%) with a higher level of education (67.34%) while mothers were mostly aged between 30 - 39 (61.22%) and a higher level (30.61%). Autistic children were negatively perceived by their parents: either as a source of psychological suffering (82.85%), or as mysterious children who sacrificed their parents (44.66%), or as “bobo” children (mute children in common Ivorian language) (16.66%) or like rude children (13.34%). The supposed origin of the disorder according to the parents was mystical-religious (60.94%); natural (25%); hereditary (6.25%). In 6.25% of cases, PDD were assumed to be of unknown or iatrogenic origin attributable to vaccination (1.56%). 75.51% of parents said that in addition to conventional medical therapies, they also used traditional therapies. The use of this therapeutic alternative would be linked to the perceptions and beliefs that feed the socio-cultural representations of our respondents.