Abstract
Background:Thalassemia Major Disease is not only assumed as a health disorder, but also a social- economic problem in many countries. The costs of transport and preparation of drugs is considered as the greatest problems for more than 63.8% of the patients’ families.This study was conducted by aiming at describing biological experience among parents of patients with Thalassemia Major.Method:The current qualitative investigation was carried out on 32 parents of patients with Thalassemia Major and by means of unstructured interview in- depth through snowball sampling technique in 2013. The data were analyzed by conventional content analytical method.Findings:The perception of biological experience of parents of patients with Thalassemia Major were classified based on participants’ experiences into three main themes including psychological experiences, physical experiences, and social experiences. 1) Psychological (mental) experiences comprise of two subclasses of the reduced self-confidence, deficient emotions and negative emotions; 2) Physical experiences consist of three subclasses of sleeping disorders, pains in various parts of body, and limited physical activity; and 3) Social experiences includes 3 subcategories of interpersonal relations, reduced income, job, and limitation in doing tasks. 4) Treatment experiences comprise of five sub-themes including 1- Shortage of drugs, blood, and filter etc; 2- Less experienced personnel; 3- Lack of training the patients’ parents by personnel in thalassemia ward; 4- Lack of visiting patients by physician in thalassemia ward; and 5- Inappropriate behavior of personnel toward patients and their parents.Conclusion:Thalassemia Major has affected negatively on several fields of health for these patients and their parents including physical, mental, economic, and social areas. Reducing these problems requires constant interventions and surveying health and medical status of these patients.
Highlights
Thalassemia is the most epidemic type of hereditary chronic anemia among humans, which is created due to imbalanced production of peptide cycles as constituents of hemoglobin (Haghshenas & Zamani, 2000; Karimi, Ghavanini, & Kadivar, 2000)
This study was conducted by aiming at describing biological experience among parents of patients with Thalassemia Major
Thalassemia is divided into two groups based on type of reduced hemoglobin cycle: Alpha and Beta (Tarbiat Modares University, 2004) and it is transferred by autosomal recessive allele so that if two persons, as carriers of thalassemia, get married together there is 25% probability for their children to suffer from thalassemia major while 25% of their children will be healthy and the rest 50% are carriers for thalassemia
Summary
Thalassemia is the most epidemic type of hereditary chronic anemia among humans, which is created due to imbalanced production of peptide cycles as constituents of hemoglobin (Haghshenas & Zamani, 2000; Karimi, Ghavanini, & Kadivar, 2000). Vol 7, No 1; 2015 mainly observed in southeastern Asia as well as western African beaches and its incidence has been reported 4.8-10% in Thailand. In this course, more than 50% of total population suffers from a type of alpha thalassemia in desert areas in eastern Saudi Arabia. About 3% of total world population is carriers for beta thalassemia where these gene-carriers are further seen in Italy and Greece but there are these carriers in northern and western Africa, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and India (Haghshenas & Zamani, 1993; Karimi, Ghavanini, & Kadivar, 2000). The costs of transport and preparation of drugs is considered as the greatest problems for more than 63.8% of the patients’ families.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
