Interviews w/ Parents of Children w/ Disabilities & Sleep Difficulties
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Parents of Children with Disabilities: Exploring the reasons for seeking help for sleep problems
IRAS ID
177421
Contact name
Annie B McHugh
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of East London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 2 months, 30 days
Research summary
This research project is titled: 'Parents of Children with Disabilities: Exploring the reasons for seeking help for sleeping problems'.
Children with disabilities are likely to experience sleep difficulties that can affect their behaviour and their physical and emotional well-being. These sleep difficulties can also have huge impacts on their parents and other family members, including increased stress, distress and difficulties coping. Parents are commonly offered behavioural interventions as evidence suggests these are most effective. However, despite their often being a need for extra support, many parents find that they do not wish to engage with these interventions.
This study is interested in finding out the reasons why parents seek help and support in the first place, how they identify that there is a problem with their child's sleep and what services they would like to receive. It is hoped that this will make services more accessible and useful to parents in similar situations in the future.
The research involves interviewing eight to twelve parents individually for between 45 minutes to an hour. The interviewer will ask questions about being a parent of a child with disabilities and sleep difficulties and war it has been like to seek help. The interviews will be with parents who have been referred to a sleep service and have either engaged with all of the interventions offered, some of them or none at all. They will happen at the sleep service. Parents will be sent a letter from the manager of the sleep service inviting them to take part. Taking part in the study will not affect the services they or their family receive and they are not obliged to tell anyone at the sleep service that they are participating. The Chief Investigator will type the interviews up, anonymise them and analyse them using thematic analysis.
REC name
London - Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/1352
Date of REC Opinion
3 Sep 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion