Resilience as a predictor of parental stress among selected mothers of children with intellectual disability in Kerala, India

Abstract

It is really challenging and stressful to take care of children with Intellectual Disability. In Indian context and culture mothers are more affected with the disability of the child. Stress related to the parenting of children with intellectual disabilities leads to emotional burn out, physical exhaustion and socially isolation. It adversely affects their psychological wellbeing. But despite the increased stressful situations and adversities in life, parents who are more resilient are able to effectively manage them and flourish out of them. This study focuses on the relation of resilience on stress and its predictive influence on parental stress related to their children’s Intellectual Disability. 174 mothers, aged between 25-40, of children with intellectual disability participated in this study. Parental Stress Scale (PSS) and Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) were used to measure the variables and correlation research method is applied in this study. The results show that there exist a negative correlation(-.685) between resilience and parental stress. The regression analysis of the data showed that resilience can contribute the variance of 65% in the parental stress of mothers of children with intellectual disability. The result clearly shows that the idea of enhancing resilience can reduce parental stress of mother of children with intellectual disability.