Adult children’s experiences of family occupations following ageing parents’ functional decline

Abstract

Background. Adult children often live separately from their ageing parents; however, family occupations between them may still be an important aspect of daily life. Previous research showed that, when ageing parents experience functional decline, their adult children's everyday life is affected. Purpose. We aimed to provide insight into adult children's experiences of family occupations when their older parents' exhibit functional decline. Method. This study used a qualitative research design with a constructivist grounded theory approach. In total, 15 in-depth interviews were carried out in a Norwegian context with adult children, aged 47-64 years, whose parents were exhibiting increased functional decline and had received public reablement services as a result. Findings. Family occupations consist of visible aspects, such as "doing family occupations" together and for each other, and less visible aspects, including experiences of "ambivalence in doing without being asked" and "being in a state of readiness". Our findings showed how adult children gradually assumed responsibility for the physical aspects of 'doing' in the family occupations. However, they expressed that their parents did not always accept or want to let go of the doing, even when they had difficulties performing physically. Family occupations are constantly changing, and they are metaphorically illustrated as an iceberg. Conclusion. Our findings advance understandings of adult children's perspectives on family occupations. Adult children play an important part in maintaining family occupation by adapting, planning, and taking on an active role and a stand-by position in the family occupations.

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“…Recent examples in qualitative health research include a road trip in families with a Down Syndrome child, 29 welfare systems as a pinball machine 30 and an iceberg representing caring for ageing parents. 31 In these examples and the current study, the authors selected a metaphor during the analytic process with the aim of improved understanding of complex topics reported in the findings 28 and described with the use of symbols from the real world. 6 This metaphor was selected through a collaborative process where lay responders were provided with multiple metaphor options in combination with the analytic themes to select the metaphor of best fit.…”

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