**Author details**

*Human Blood Group Systems and Haemoglobinopathies*

ence of all the children in relation to the disease.

in this research on the mother, the sick child and Jules himself.

traditional healers.

**6. Conclusion**

within the family.

**Acknowledgements**

proofreading this work.

**Conflict of interest**

None.

to the patient's brothers and sisters.

to the child [14] and hence as a "stain" in family [4] and a hindrance to traditional treatment. In this case, it would be interesting to understand how mothers and fathers experience the care of their children with sickle cell anemia by hospital and

Jules's family agreed to participate in the research despite the fact that sickle cell anemia remains a taboo subject in African families [2]. It is possible that this family invested the research as a means of understanding the experience of the brothers and sisters of the sick child. The researcher can be considered a mediator who allows the family to talk indirectly about sickle cell anemia with the sick child and his siblings. The parents do not themselves talk with the children about this disease, but they prefer that someone else did it. Although this can be a coping mechanism due to the guilt they experience regarding the situation, they consider themselves as parents who have transgressed a cultural norm whose consequence is the child's illness. This behavior of the parents remains complex. Anyway, the participation of the family in this research shows the interest they had in understanding the experi-

This research also allowed Jules to tell the researcher, his family and care professionals his experience with his sister's illness despite it being a taboo subject. It has therefore d upset the norm or violated the family taboo on sickle cell anemia. It would be interesting to understand the impact of Jules and his family's participation

This article presents results similar to those of other works concerning the co-existence of traditional and modern representations of sickle cell anemia among sub-Saharan African families [9, 36] and their involvement in traditional and modern care systems [46]. Finally, Jules knows that in the event of seizures, only the hospital (where she is taken only for emergencies) can mitigate them and that there is a possibility that the treatment can fail and lead to her death, the brothers and sisters are then absent from this care. The traditional healers, meanwhile, intervene before crises in order to prevent them before they occur. This intervention protects the sick child and their family against the wizards, who are designated as responsible for the attacks and thereby the danger of a possible transmission of the disease

This research indicates the need for spaces of speech within healthcare institutions that can enable families, parents and children to express their experiences with illness and care. It also indicates the need for professionals to take these experiences into account. It would therefore be interesting to question the experience of the sick child with the side by side existence of two care systems

Our heartfelt gratitude and thanks to Joy Gursky and Josephine Atieno for

**52**

Hassan Njifon Nsangou1,2\* and Régine Scelles2

1 Département de Philosophie-Psychologie-Sociologie, Université de Dschang, Cameroon

2 Laboratoire Clipsyd, Université Paris Nanterre, France

\*Address all correspondence to: hassannji75@yahoo.fr

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
