Communication Between Deaf Women and Health Workers In Reproductive Healthcare: A Case Of Adamorobe In The Eastern Region

Abstract

The study focuses on the communication between deaf women and healthcare providers in Adamorobe, a community in the Eastern Region of Ghana, which has one of the highest occurrences of hereditary deafness. The study adopts a qualitative case study approach, informed by the interpretivist philosophy, and relies on the transactional model of communication, as formulated by Barnlund, and Foucault’s theory of power/knowledge to examine communication practices and power relationships in the clinical encounter. Semi-structured interviews with fifteen deaf women and five healthcare providers in the Adamorobe health facility were used to collect data with the assistance of trained sign language interpreters. The use of thematic analysis was done to reveal patterns in the experiences of the participants. The results show that communication is mostly improvised and mediated. It relies on writing, gestures, and family members because there are no professional sign language interpreters, and the healthcare providers have poor sign language skills. The practices are damaging to informed consent, privacy and the reproductive autonomy of deaf women. The research also found that communication barriers are some of the factors that lead to delayed care, health facility avoidance, low reproductive health knowledge, and the tendency to rely on others to make health-related decisions. Deaf women recognised the necessity for healthcare workers to be able to use sign language, interpreter assistance, and visual and technological means of communication. It is found that the communication barriers are not only technical, but are institutional and socio-economic inequalities that are embedded in the practices of institutions. The recommendation is to have effective, inclusive communication systems between deaf women and health practitioners as stakeholders in the reproductive healthcare system of Ghana.