Breaking the silence: A qualitative exploration of parental perspectives of children with Goldenhar Syndrome.

Background: Goldenhar Syndrome is a rare congenital condition, typically characterized by craniofacial abnormalities and vertebral malformations. Due to its rare and complex nature, the etiology is unconfirmed, resulting in parental uncertainty and subsequent emotional sequelae. Clinical manifestations have been researched but few studies have explored parental wellbeing and Quality of Life (QoL). In this qualitative study, we explore parental views of the challenges and lived experience of raising a child with Goldenhar Syndrome. Methods: Ten biological parents (five mothers and five fathers), recruited at the Goldenhar UK Conference, took part in audio-recorded, semi-structured interviews. Interviews explored emotional wellbeing, views surrounding causation, support accessed, challenges faced, experience of stigma and future outlooks. Reflexive thematic analysis was employed, and transcripts were subject to deductive and inductive coding. Results: Seven themes were identified: support networks (Goldenhar UK), rollercoaster of emotion; gendered coping; uncertainty; societal reactions; coping with challenge and acceptance. Conclusions: This is the first-time the life perspectives of parents, raising a child with Goldenhar Syndrome, have been explored via interviews. We have unearthed prominent issues that impact parental QoL including isolation and distress at the point of diagnosis, and throughout the multidisciplinary health journey. We have also established significant indicators of the ongoing QoL challenges faced by young people with Goldenhar Syndrome. Future work is underway exploring these issues further with teenagers, young people and adults with Goldenhar to develop a conceptual framework of their QoL. This will be used to develop a bespoke patient reported outcome (PRO) to give voice to the challenges children and young adults face during their medical journey.

'Cos girls aren't supposed to eat like pigs are they?' Young women negotiating gendered discursive constructions of food and eating.

While psycho-medical understandings of 'eating disorders' draw distinctions between those who 'have'/'do not have' eating disorders, feminist poststructuralist researchers argue that these detract from political/socio-cultural conditions that invoke problematic eating and embodied subjectivities. Using poststructuralist discourse analysis, we examine young women's talk around food and eating, in particular, the negotiation of tensions arising from derogating aspects of hetero-normative femininities, while accounting for own 'feminine' practices (e.g. 'dieting') and subjectivities. Analysis suggested that eating/dieting was accounted for by drawing upon neo-liberalist discourses around individual choice; however, these may obscure gendered, classed and racialized power relations operating in local and wider contexts.