Caregivers’ experiences of caring for children with conduct disorder in Nansana Municipality

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to understand caregivers ‘experiences of caring for children with conduct disorders in Nansana municipality. The study was guided by the following objectives; to examine the meaning of conduct disorders in the caregiver’s own words, to examine the burden attributed to caring for children with conduct disorders and to examine the specific kinds of social support that are available for caregivers with children with conduct disorder. Conduct disorder in children consist of aggressive conduct that threatens physical harm to other people or non-aggressive behaviour that causes property loss or damage, deceitfulness and theft and serious violation of rules. This qualitative study with a case study design explored the caregivers’ experiences of caring for children with conduct disorder in Nansana municipality. The study used individual face to face in-depth interviews with seven (7) participants who are mainly women and they were purposefully selected. In addition, two key informants were interviewed so as to get their opinions about children with conduct disorder. The study findings revealed that children with conduct disorder are very disruptive as they are always engaged in vandalizing property, engage in theft, deceitful to other people as well as they lack remorse for their actions towards other people. Additionally the findings showed that caring for children with conduct disorder comes with numerous burdens including financial burden, social stigma, school dropout, as well as poor academic performance. Further still, there are some social support entities including the family, community and the school available to caregivers caring for children with conduct disorder. The study concluded with recommending the need for relevant stakeholders to use the generated knowledge to create awareness about conduct disorder since most of the parents tend to leave such behaviours unchecked yet it has the potential to cause disruption or even violent crimes. And also the need to create avenues through with caregivers of children with conduct disorder and other stake holders from the community as well as different institutions such as school can liaise so as to provide the necessary behavioural training for children with conduct disorder as this will help them improve of their antisocial behaviours.