Stress And Coping In Families With A Mentally Or Physically Handicapped Child

Abstract

Exposure to stress is intrinsic to family life. Specific characteristics of children, for example, mental and physical handicaps, may influence the amount of stress that the family experiences. These characteristics are relatively unalterable and thus the stress experienced by the families is enduring. As there is a high prevalence of mental and physical handicap in South Africa (Hattingh et al, 1987), there is an urgent need to provide more specialised and supportive services for families with mentally and physically handicapped children. Therefore, the present study was designed to identify the areas of stress experienced by families with a mentally or physically handicapped child so that community resources and health professionals can focus on these specific areas. To achieve this aim, the Questionnaire on Resources and Stress for Families with Chronically Ill or Handicapped Members (QRS) was utilised to describe the stress and resource patterns of families with a mentally or physically handicapped child. A comparison was made of the ORS responses of frequency matched groups of parents of mentally handicapped (n = 161), physically handicapped (n = 123) and non-handicapped (n = 164) children. It was found that: (1) parents of mentally and physically handicapped children reported similar stress levels. However, both groups reported more stress than parents of non-handicapped children; (2) African and white parents of mentally handicapped children differed in their stress patterns; the age and sex of the mentally handicapped child, and the sex of the parent had no effect on the stress patterns of these families.