Parenting with arthritis?
While there have been a multitude of studies on dealing with arthritis in the workplace, there has been surprisingly little research on how arthritis affects people in their day-to-day lives as parents and homemakers.
Enter Dr. Catherine Backman, an occupational therapist and research scientist with the Arthritis Research Centre of Canada, whose PhD on participation in paid and unpaid work by adults with rheumatoid arthritis has led her to pursue further research on arthritis and unpaid work.
“I found that some of my most interesting findings came out of looking at the unpaid sector of work,” said Dr. Backman. “Clearly, this type of work has an impact on the physical and psychological well-being of people with arthritis, but nobody knows exactly what the impacts are, simply because nobody has been asking these questions in a research setting.”
Others obviously agree that more research is needed on arthritis and the unpaid sector. Dr. Backman was recently awarded a $100,000 American College of Rheumatology Research and Education Foundation Health Professional Investigator’s Award for a two-year study on Arthritis, Parenting and Household Work.
Her study will look specifically at the differences in performance and physical and psychological well-being between mothers with arthritis and those without a chronic illness.
Having a chronic illness can create emotional difficulties and insecurities that can interfere with the ability to manage the demands of household work. While all parents have a certain amount of fear or insecurity about how they are raising their children, parents with arthritis often find those insecurities compounded by mobility limitations, pain and fatigue.
“In previous research, I came across a young mother who wouldn’t ask her children to pick up after themselves because she was ashamed that her arthritis restricted her from doing it for them,” said Dr. Backman. “Her insecurities about being an arthritic mother prevented her from realizing that all mothers should ask their children to clean up after themselves—regardless of whether or not they have arthritis.”
Dr. Backman hopes to minimize such fears or insecurities by drawing attention to common challenges that all parents with arthritis face and by providing alternative strategies for moms to take part in activities that are often difficult due to arthritis.
She will begin her study in July of this year, with results expected by the summer of 2006. In addition to her appointment as research scientist at the Arthritis Research Centre of Canada, Dr. Backman is associate professor and interim head, Division of Occupational Therapy at UBC.
