The demand of the clients of a sociosanitary service for adults with disability and their family members: A research-intervention with the Emotional Text Analysis

Abstract

The paper reports a research-intervention realized within a Complex Operative Unit of a Italian Local Health Authority providing sociosanitary services for adults with disability and their family members. The research explored, with the Emotional Text Analysis, the local culture of 90 adults with disability and their family members regarding their expectations towards the organization and the services used. The research was motivated by the opeators’ difficulty in analyzing the users’ demand and expectations, as highlighted by a previous research that explored the operators’ local culture (Bisogni & Pirrotta 2018). The research results presented here show that the cohabitation crisis in the family context motivates the clients’ demand towards the organization. The crisis is linked to the difficulty in developing relationships based on sharing desirers, as an alternative to the assistance’s obligation between family members. This is also associated with a dynamic of medicalization of relational problems and with the infantilization of the adults with disability. The research participants express the demand to discuss the emotional problems experienced within the families and the desire to participate in the verification of the used services.