Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses and Research

Never mind, I can't hear you, the stress of living with Glue Ear: a young person's perspective

Capewell, C. (2014) Never mind, I can't hear you, the stress of living with Glue Ear: a young person's perspective. Paper presented to: Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) Conference 2014, The University of Northampton, 02-04 July 2014. (Unpublished)

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Abstract: Although Glue Ear is a common condition in childhood, the psycho-social implications are under-investigated as to its impact on young people with the long-term condition. Although it meets the criteria for a chronic childhood illness, as defined by Berland (2009), it is not constructed as such. Additionally the hearing loss associated with it is regarded as temporary so young people with the long-term condition receive limited support. Young people have not been directly asked about their experiences of Glue Ear prior to this research. The methodology used combined Photovoice (Wang and Burris, 1997) for gathering the data and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith, et al., 2009) for data analysis. Participants created a photomontage summing up their experience which they discussed with the researcher. In this paper I provide a short summary of the way the young people explained their response to having intermittent hearing loss at school and with friends. The impact of continuing hospital visits and repeated operations which, for them, do not resolve the condition is explored from their perspective. This research was exploratory with three participants, aged 10-16 years. It does illustrate that young people are articulate and analytical in describing their experience of what is often seen as a trivial condition and that more awareness is needed by health care and educational professionals of the potential mental health implications for young people.
Uncontrolled Keywords: Young people's voice, Glue Ear, Otitis Media, mental well being
Subjects: R Medicine > RF Otorhinolaryngology > RF110 Otology. Diseases of the ear > RF225 Otitis media in children
H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Women > HQ767 Children. Child development
L Education > LC Special aspects of Education > LC3950 Exceptional children and youth. Special education > LC4001 Children and youth with disabilities. Learning disabled children and youth
Creators: Capewell, Carmel
Faculties, Divisions and Institutes: University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Research Centre > Centre for Special Needs Education and Research
University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Faculty of Education & Humanities
University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Research Centre > Centre for Education and Research
Research Centres > Centre for Education and Research
Date: 2 July 2014
Date Type: Presentation
Event Title: Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) Conference 2014
Event Dates: 02-04 July 2014
Event Location: The University of Northampton
Event Type: Conference
Language: English
Status: Unpublished
Related URLs:
References: Berland, J. (2009) The elephant in the closet. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 13(7), 699-711. Smith, J., Flowers, P. and Larkin, M. (2009) Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Theory, Method and Research London: Sage. Wang, C. and Burris, M. (1997) Photovoice: Concept, Methodology and Use for participatory needs assessment. Health, Education & Behavior, 24(3), 369-387.
URI: http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/6802

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