Embracing autism in Canadian rural communities

The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of Canadian parents living in rural areas who were parenting a child with autism.

A phenomenological design described by van Manen was applied to guide this study.

This study took place in rural communities of Western Canada.

Purposive sampling was used to recruit 26 families parenting a child with autism in rural communities. Participants ranged in age from 26 to 50 years old and lived an average of 197 kilometres away from an urban city.

Parents of children with autism took part in audio-taped, in-depth interviews. A total of 26 open-ended interviews were completed over four months with an average of 83 minutes per interview.

All interviews and field notes were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using van Manen's selective highlighting approach.

When describing the characteristics of living rurally while parenting a child with autism, parents reported that the rural community had (i) less of everything, (ii) safety and familiarity, and (iii) a family of support. Parents believed that although there were disadvantages to living in a rural community, parents felt isolated in terms of services but not in terms of the support received by the community.

The results of this study add to our knowledge of parenting experiences with attention to the rural experience and furthermore, recommendations for nurses and health care professionals were provided.