Feb 19 2009
Parents of Children With Special Needs Are Stressed
Parents of children with special needs tend to be more stressed than parents without children with disabilities, confirms a new study.
Marsha Mailick Seltzer of the Waisman Center, located at the University of Wisconsin, and her colleagues examined parents’ survey responses and measured their stress for this study. Data was used from the Midlife in the United States study. Parents who had children with special needs included children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Down syndrome, and Bipolar disorder.
The Midlife study included telephone interviews with 82 midlife parents who had children with disabilities. During the interview, parents answered questions about their experiences the previous day in terms of physical symptoms, time use, positive events, and daily stress. The researchers asked parents how often in the past 24 hours they had experienced daily stress, including work stress, arguments, and home stress. These responses were compared to those of parents who had children with no disabilities.
Parents who had children with disabilities were found to have more daily stressors and days where they experienced stress than parents with children without disabilities. While parents with special needs children experienced at least one stressor on 50% of the study days, parents with kids with no disabilities experienced at least one stressor on 40% of study days. Additionally, parents with disabled children reported having more physical health problems.
Cortisol levels were also measured, and the researchers discovered parents with special needs children showed a pattern of chronic stress that was higher than normal on days they spent more time with their kids.
Seltzer asserts this study shows parents with disabled children would benefit from stress reduction techniques.
Patricia Wright, national director of autism services for the Easter Seals agrees that parents with disabled children need support. Unfortunately, she says, respite care is often unavailable for these parents due to the lack of funding.
Perhaps future research will focus on intervention programs for stressed parents with children who have special needs.
Source:
Psych Central: Parental Stress With Special Needs Children
