PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES AND STRESS

 

PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES AND STRESS
Raj Kumari Gupta*, Harpreet Kaur**
 
ABSTRACT
The present study examined stress among parents of children with disabilities. 102 parents formed the sample of this study, 30 of whom had children without a disability. A stress assessment test with internal validity of 0.608 was utilised. This test had two parts: physical and mental, former with 19 items and latter with 21 items. The test was applied to check differences in stress, gender differences, and differences in mental and physical stress. Results show that, most parents of disabled children experience stress, physical and mental stress are significantly correlated, gender differences in stress experienced occur more in the mental area, and parents have higher mental stress scores as compared to physical stress.
 
INTRODUCTION
Diagnosis of intellectual and physical disability in a child provokes a period of disequilibrium followed eventually by an adjustment to life with or without undue stress. There are various stresses which emerge and continue over time. Discrepancies between expectations and the development of the disabled child continue bringing feelings of loss and grief (1).
 
A parent shows a series of reactions after knowing that their child is disabled. These include shock, denial, guilt, sorrow, rejection, and acceptance. Questions like ‘why me?’ ‘How can it be?’ keep arising without answers. Some of them undergo tremendous guilt feelings, experience ongoing deep sorrow, have strong under expectations of achievement, may have unrealistic goals, may want to escape form reactions, and ultimately turn to accept the child (2). All this can affect parents differently. Their physical and mental health suffer (or it is perceived to suffer). Wikler (1) mentions that the continuous stress chronically affects their lives.
 
Farber (3) found that initial stress in parents appears to be sex-linked which shifted with time. Parents of severely disabled children undergo more overall stress than parents of chronically ill or normal children. According to Faber (4), jealousy and resentment may also develop in siblings if the disabled child requires most of his parent's attention, leaving short tempers and impatience for the others.
 
Jani (5) in a study examined the social problems related to the presence of a disabled child in a family. Results indicate that parental feelings were marked by ongoing anxiety about the future, especially as the disabled child and parents gets older. Psychological stress with decreased social interaction. Misunderstandings within family coupled with economic loss and stress were significant facts associated with the presence of a disabled child in the family.
 
Dupont (6) found in a review of a four-year caseload of a small community mental health centre, that community mental health services often had a policy of not providing services to families with a disabled child.
 
Loeb (7) has expressed that parents of disabled children face many special stresses. They have little opportunity to explore their own needs, dreams, and personal challenges.
 
Fishman et al. (8) in their study examined the role of parenting stress and parental depression and marital intimacy among parents of disabled children and developmentally normal children. Results showed that mothers and fathers of disabled children showed significant greater stress and depression than parents with non-disabled children.
 
Heller et al. (9) found that parents of disabled children, carry a heavy ongoing impact burden in terms of living within the daily challenges of caring for their disabled child. 
 
Peshawaria et al (10) stated that there were inhibiting factors affecting parents in trying to cope in caring for disabled children. The challenge and pressure lie in trying to balance caregiving and ‘normal’ life. Overall support was mostly lacking.
 
Seshadri et al (11) reported a direct relationship between the degree of perceived burden, social emotional burden, disruption of family routine and disturbance in family interactions and relationships for parents with disabled children.
 
Hedov et al. (12) studied self-perceived health in Swedish parents of disabled children. They found parents of disabled children had significantly lower, less favourable scores on self-perceived health than did the control group.
 
Shin and Crittenden (13) in their study provided explanations for wellbeing of Korean and American parents of children with disabilities. Causes of stress for the American parents were specific to the individual variables. For Korean parents, cultural values that carry social influences were strongly associated with their experience of stress.
 
Laurvick et al. (14) while working on physical and mental health of parents caring for a disabled child found that factors positively related with better mental health were the following: the parent working full time or part-time outside the home.
 
Kermanshahi et al. (15) in their study on perceptions of living with children with disabilities found six major themes: challenging the process of acceptance, painful emotional reactions, the interrelatedness of parent health and child's wellbeing, struggles to deal with oneself or the child, inadequate support from family and community, and the anxiety related to the child's uncertain future.
 
Studies in literature indicate that parents of children with disabilities, would have high stress and low health scores. On the other hand, Mahoney (16) documented some positive effects. He found that the a disabled child can have an integrative effect by focusing the family's energy in a concerned, loving manner, thereby minimizing some of the other day to day problems. Some parents expressed a new appreciation for life and ordinary things they used to take for granted.
 
The present study was planned with the hypothesis that, a) Parents of Children with Disabilities (PCD) will experience significantly greater stress as compared to Parents of Children with No Disability (PCND), b) Parents of children with disabilities will experience significantly greater mental stress than physical stress.
 
The major findings of this study are that parents of children with disabilities experience more stress than normal. However, all the subjects experience higher levels of mental stress than physical stress.
 
*Address for correspondence
# 3379, Sector 35-D, Chandigarh. U.T. - 160022, India
 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Thanks to Ms Harpreet Kaur, for collecting data and reviewing part of the literature for this study and Dr Nisha Duggal for collecting some part of the data.
 
REFERENCES
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