This research aimed at understanding strategies participants employed in coping with adulthood-acquired physical disabilities using a phenomenological research design (eds. Denzin & Lincoln 2005; Merriam 2009; Smith, Flowers & Larkin 2009). The phenomenological design was suitable because participants described their experiences of the disability phenomenon (Creswell 2012), thus revealing the quintessence of things (Lin 2013). The investigation was carried out in a rural real-life situation and no attempt was made to manipulate the phenomenon of interest (Kobus 2010). It employed ethical triage to avoid harm to participants, such as prioritising events as they occur and paying attention to the interviewees’ visual expressions (Buchanan & Warwick 2021). As a result of the sensitivity of the research topic, the author arranged counselling sessions for participants who required the service because of the potential of interviews resulting in psychological discomfort.

Families with disabled adults in the Vhembe District in the Limpopo province were approached for participation, and the study sample was chosen based on having acquired the disability during their adulthood. Initially, seven participants were recruited using the linear snowballing technique, where the first participant was identified and referred the researcher to another person, and another person referred to another, up to the seventh participant. However, two participants withdrew before the end of the study, and they were not included in data analysis. The withdrawal was because of their relocation away from the study area. Creswell (2012) contended that a sample of 5–25 is good enough for a phenomenological study to yield rich data. Voluntary consent from the participants was obtained before data collection. In order to ensure the anonymity of participants, the researchers used codes (Participants A–E).

Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and document analysis (Creswell 2012). Each participant was given an appointment that was convenient. All participants signed consent forms before interviews. An audio recorder was used to record the interviews, and each interview lasted between 50 and 60 min. This time was adequate to allow probing (De Vos et al. 2011). The responses were read back to the participants to ascertain that what was recorded reflected their views, thus prolonging the process to refine the findings. All interviews were conducted in Tshivenda. The Tshivenda version was translated to English, and the English version was back-translated to Tshivenda to ensure that meaning was not lost. An interview schedule with the following questions was used to obtain information from participants:

Data from the audio-tape recorder were transcribed. The first author read and re-read the participants’ transcripts (Rubin & Babbie 2011). Data were thematically analysed using guidelines explained by Braun and Clarke (2006): reducing data, selecting significance from less significant issues, recognising vital points and constructing a framework to reveal real issues at hand. Thematic analysis was used to get the main points, notable topics and novel themes.

The researchers enhanced credibility and trustworthiness by reading and re-reading the participants’ transcripts to confirm what was captured as true reflections of their views, and this process prolonged engagement (Lietz, Langer & Fruman 2006) and minimised bias (Lietz et al. 2006). After listening to the recorded data many times, the researcher transcribed and read the transcripts to capture lived experiences. The information was subsequently returned to the participants to confirm the interpretation and themes that reflected their concepts regarding strategies used to cope with adulthood-acquired physical disabilities.

The participants gave brief accounts on how they had acquired the disabilities:

The participants’ meaning-making of their AAD ranged from associating it with punishment, pain, not a bother, to ‘black magic’. A few extracts from the participants are as follows:

Four themes emerged regarding the coping strategies used by participants with AAD: (1) spiritual support, (2) social support, (3) substance dependency and (4) access to health and rehabilitation services. We elaborate on these themes here using verbatim statements of participants.

Participants found comfort in God as a source of support. The participants could not grieve alone because successful grieving interactions depend on significant human interactions and support from religious groups. Participants with religious beliefs coped better with their disabilities than participants with no religious affiliation. The following extracts from three out of five participants indicated that spiritual support helped them cope with their disabilities.

Participants stated support groups encouraged them to interact by sharing their distressing experiences. The social interactions increased their self-esteem despite their immediate families and friends who did not fully understand their difficulties. For instance, three out of five participants made the following comments:

Two participants explained that they resorted to alcohol and other drugs, such as ‘dagga’, to cope with their disabilities. They explained that these substances make them forget their disabilities. The following extracts from participants show how they used different substances to cope with physical disabilities:

Others indicated that they took overdose of medicines, hoping to alleviate the stress:

Participants reported the critical role of health professionals in making sure that disabled people cope with acquired physical disabilities. For instance, four out of five participants made the following narrations:

Participant B had a positive view of his acquired disability and used a problem-focused strategy to tackle the alternative lifestyle regarding the disability. He exhibited a positive, focused coping strategy, shown in his seeking help from health practitioners and rehabilitation to deal with his disability. He, however, indulged in substances. This observation agrees with Moos (1992) because participant B sought solutions regarding the acquired disability, such as spiritual, social and health help. This strategy is not surprising because Sheldon, Renwick and Yoshida (2011) suggested that adults who acquire disabilities look for solutions to their challenges as disabled persons. Participant B declared that he was lucky to be alive and was positive about his disability because he used his logic to appreciate that being disabled and alive was better than being dead. The positive sentiments observed here agree with Moos (1992), who contended that problem-focused individuals use LA, are positive in accepting reality and look for actions to face the disability. Hence, Participant B was positive about living normally and acting within the confines of his disability. The positive attitudes can be understood because he was mature, aged 42 years old. This observation parallels Chen et al. (2018), who found that age contributes to choosing problem-focused coping strategies in managing the disability, unlike teenagers. Thus, they seek PS to address the problem at hand.

The results show that Participants C, D and E showed negative sentiments about their disabilities but sought solutions to manage their emotions concerning their AAD. According to Chen et al. (2018), these participants used a positive emotion-focused coping strategy. The participants invoked spiritual, organisational advocacy and occupational therapy in this strategy. These coping strategies should minimise the emotions caused by their disability. Moos (1992) contended that emotion-focused strategies encompass CA, where individuals avoid the reality of their disability, seek alternative temporal solutions and engage in temporal activities to dismiss reality. Positive emotion-focused individuals improve their physiology (Kok et al. 2013) and emotional well-being (Fredrickson & Joiner 2002).

The results show that Participant A was negative about the acquired disability. Judging from sharing her disability experiences with other people to get some guidance and attending gospel ministry programmes every Wednesday, Participant A used positive emotions. This observation agrees with Chen et al. (2018), who contended that someone looking for help from communities or friends is geared to using positive emotion-focused coping strategies. Conversely, the use of drug overdose to keep her sleeping to avoid the emotions is used to categorise her as using negative emotion coping strategies. This categorisation agrees with Chen et al. (2018), who asserted that individuals who avoid the reality of the problem are likely to use negative emotion-focused coping strategies. Participant A used drugs to mask the disability challenges. This behaviour is common and several studies have reported an association between disability and stress (Chen et al. 2018; Mushtaq & Akhouri 2016; Terrill & Molton 2018; Wongwan 2021).

Chetty (2011) reported that some people indulge in substances to seek temporary relief. Also, given the circumstances, confiding in peers with positive attitudes could assist the substance abusers (Ibrahim & Kumar 2009). Moos (1992) contended that emotion-focused people use CA, seek alternative rewarding activities, which do not solve the problem and expel the reality of the problem.

From the study findings, persons with disabilities found comfort in social relationships, families and other support groups who tried to understand their AAD. The disabled person’s immediate family members have a social responsibility to accept the disability and work with them day by day. In addition, associating with other disabled persons made them feel comfortable, as they shared experiences with people who could understand their disabled situations better than persons without disabilities (Sadiki, Radzilani–Makatu & Zikhali 2015). Thus, social support improves well-being among people with AAD (Elliott, Kurylo & Rivera et al. 2002), and this support is effective if provided for a long time (Devereux et al. 2015). The problem-focused individuals used institutional support from health professionals to cope with their disabilities. Thus, institutional support was used as part of the problem-focused coping strategies (Roth & Cohen 1986). The emotion-focused participants exhibited both positive and negative strategies to assuage the challenges caused by their disabilities.

The study contributes to understanding the experiences of people living with adulthood-acquired physical disabilities and the coping strategies to deal with their acquired situations. It is an inspiration to all humanity, which is at a potential danger of acquiring physical disabilities, to hope that life can be worth living after acquiring physical disabilities. The study established that participants used problem-focused and positive/negative emotion-focused strategies to cope with their disabilities. Notwithstanding the strategies used, there were challenges of access to healthcare, which is a right of every person with acquired disabilities (Heapa, Lorenzo & Thomas 2009; Mégret, 2008). Other barriers include the lack of information on health services, long distances to health facilities and poor public transport that did not favour disabled persons (Beatty et al. 2003; Harris et al. 2011; Maart et al. 2007). Hence, there is a need to sensitise the community to sympathise and assist disabled persons for a worthwhile living.