Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 11

b) Data Collection and Analysis Procedures This cross-sectional research is qualitative in nature. The participants in the study are the hearing parents of children between the ages of 3 and 10 years who have been diagnosed with deafness. They were recruited using the ad’hoc method. This resulted in a sample of 127 parents with a female/male sex ratio of 17.17. These participants were subjected to a semi- directed interview guide that was validated beforehand by a group of four clinical psychologists. The study was conducted in accordance with the basic rules of ethics relating to information, anonymity, confidentiality and verbal informed consent of the participants in strict compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki according to which no intervention likely to alter the dignity, integrity and right to privacy of the respondents should be used. Content analysis in its logico-semantics form was used to exploit the data from the interviews. Statistical tests such as the chi-square ( χ 2 ) and the contingency coefficient ( C ), which are relationship indices that can provide information on the existence and intensity of relationships between qualitative variables, were used. III. R esults a) Socio-demographic data The age of the participants is between 24 and 55 years with a mean of 39 years and a standard deviation of 1.95 and a sex ratio of 17.14. Single people represent 15.75% ( n = 02), married people represent 85.04% ( n = 108), against 13.39% of divorced people ( n = 17). Among them, 33.86% ( n = 43) are illiterate, 42.52% ( n = 54) have a basic level of study, followed by 22.05% ( n = 28) of secondary school and 2 participants have been able to do higher study or 01.57% of the sample. In terms of religious affiliation, 53.54% were practicing traditional African religions; 33.07% ( n =42) were Christians and 15.75% ( n =20) were Muslims. b) Study variables i. Degree of deafness The data show that the sample is composed of 40.16% ( n = 51) of subjects whose children suffer from profound deafness, 31.49% ( n = 40) of children with severe deafness, followed by 24.40% ( n = 31) whose children have moderate deafness. Parents whose offspring are mildly deaf represent only 3.94% of the participants, i.e. ( n = 05). ii. Representations of deafness For social representation of deafness variable, the hearing parents who think that deafness is an act of witchcraft predominate with 63.78%, followed by those who think that they are subject to persecution with 52.76%; those who explain it by an organic conception are at 29.92% and those who associate it with a divine will represent 27.56%. Some of them (14.17%) are convinced that they are undergoing a divine punishment and 11.81% assume that it is a curse. It should be noted that two or three representations can exist in the same parent of a deaf child. iii. Painful experience of parent-deaf child communication The painful experience of communication between hearing parents and deaf children can be summarized as 74.80% of worries about the deprivation of oral communication, 59.05% of worries about the limitation of oral communication, 35.43% of discomfort with gestural communication and 18.89% of difficulty in understanding the child's requests. iv. Relational difficulties With regard to relational difficulties due to the deafness of their child, the frequency of the items in this variable of the study is as follows: 44.88% of the parents feel that they are teased by their family and friends, 25.98% admit to conflicts about the child within the couple, 23.62% say that they are rejected by their family and friends and in 14.17% of the cases, deafness was mentioned as the source of divorce between the parents. v. Experiencing the child's disability The hearing parents experience the child's disability in terms of: anxiety about the child's future (74.02%); feelings of powerlessness (70.87%); shame (68.50%); pity (66.14%); narcissistic injury (54.33%); devaluation (44.88%), guilt (41.73%) and insecurity (08.66%). A significant proportion of these parents, 18.90%, deny the diagnosis. Correlation between painful communication experience, relationship difficulties, parent-child disability experience and degree of deafness • Painful experience of communication and degree of deafness Table 1: Relationship between painful communication experience and degree of deafness Painful communication experience Degree of deafness Deep Severe Average Low Worry about Deprivation of oral communication 29 (22.83%) 40 (31.50%) 25 (19.69 %) 01 (0.79%) Worry about the limitation of of oral communication 33 (25.98%) 22 (17.33%) 15 (11.81%) 05 (3.94%) © 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue XI Version I 3 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 A Social Representations of Deafness and Psychological Suffering in Parents of Deaf Children