Down or up? Explaining positive and negative emotions in parents of children with Down's syndrome: Goals, cognitive coping, and resources

Abstract

Background Some studies find that parents of children with Down's syndrome may experience symptoms of depression, while other studies find that parents adapt well. This study aimed to clarify this variability in adaptive strength by investigating a stress-coping model to explain depressive symptoms and positive affect.

Method Questionnaires were completed by 553 parents of children (aged 0–18) with Down's syndrome, containing measures of goal disturbance, cognitive coping, social support, partner bonding, and coping self-efficacy.

Results Different models for positive affect and depressive symptoms were found. The coping strategies of self-blame and rumination were positively related to depressive symptoms, and positive reappraisal was positively related to positive affect. Partner bonding characteristics played relevant roles in both models, as did coping self-efficacy and goal disturbance. Social support seemed mainly relevant in explaining positive affect.

Conclusions Different psychological factors were related to depressive symptoms and positive affect in parents of children with Down's syndrome. Implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• goals
• cognitive coping
• coping resources
• emotional well-being of parents of children with Down's syndrome

Notes

1 In a final effort to make sure gender did not influence the analyses, the first step of the main analyses was repeated by making use of two hierarchical MRAs, one for depression and one for positive affect. Gender was entered as a control variable in the first block of the hierarchical MRA and the interaction terms between gender and coping in the third block. The only effect for gender that was found was a small main effect on depressive symptoms (β = .120; p = .004). No interaction effects were found. Thus, gender did not prove to have a large effect on the models.