Journal of Nursing and Health Studies

Exploring the views and experiences of teenage parents as service users of universal child and family health care services in the Irish context

27^th Edition of World Congress on Nursing Education & Research
April 23-25, 2018 Rome, Italy

Marcella Kelly

National University of Ireland, Galway

ScientificTracks Abstracts: J Nurs Health Stud

DOI: 10.21767/2574-2825-C1-002

Abstract

This study explores the views and experiences of teenage parents as service users of universal child and family health care services. The focus of this study was to reveal lived experience from the emic perspective. For this purpose interpretive hermeneutical phenomenology underpinned by Martin Heidegger�s philosophical perspective was utilized. Thus, this study�s phenomenological focus emphasized the explication of �Being�, in this instance �being a teenage parent service user� and the exploration of that existence. The thematic analysis of the data revealed phenomenological findings represented in themes and subthemes of the phenomenon of both being a teenage parent service user of universal child and family health care services and of being in the world of the teenage parent. These themes included; being in the world of the teenage parent, being supported and helped and encounters with service entities as a service user. In the context of presenting these findings �world� in this instance was viewed from the ontological perspective of being a teenage parent service user. Following the initial explication of the phenomenological findings it was evident that participants� existence was impacted by other people, processes and structures within their world. From these viewpoint critical realist principles using Derek Layder theory of social domains to explicate the causative mechanisms within social life that shaped the lived experience of being a teenage parent service user.The culmination of utilizing both phenomenological and critical realist approach facilitated the explication of lived experience within the social context. The conceptualization of being a teenage parent service user revealed existence shaped by ideological social norms of the teenage parent. These understandings served to shape the personal and social sense of self contributing to the sense of difference, stigma and othering experienced. The negotiation of social milieu at the personal, interactional and contextual level revealed a struggle for participants in challenging the effects of social norms. This negotiation revealed the experience of being a teenage parent service user as dependent on how others in their world viewed them. It reveals the inherent power of others to shape the teenage parents� existence. It reveals the struggle teenage parents have to strive toward future goals and ambitions drawing on both material and cultural resources that facilitate these goals.

Biography

Marcella Kelly is a Programme Director for Postgraduate Diploma in Nursing, Public Health Nursing and she did her PhD with Child and Family Research Centre, NUI, Galway, Teenage Parents as Service Users of Child and Family Health Care Services. She did her MSc Nurse Education in University College Dublin. She is the Registered Nurse Tutor, Registered Public Health Nurse, Registered Health Visitor (UK), Registered Midwife and Registered General Nurse. Her research interest includes Child Health and Well Being.

Email:marcella.kelly@nuigalway.ie