Parental perceptions of stress and coping : families of preschoolers with and without disabilities

Investigations of family response to a child with a disability have typically been predominated by a focus on increased stress, disruption in family relationships, and psychological maladjustment. This focus has highlighted the impact of the child on the family rather than simultaneously considering family characteristics which may influence response to the disability. However, results regarding the impact of child characteristics on family response have been inconclusive.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate parental coping strategies and perceived parenting stress within groups of parents of preschool children with disabilities and preschool children without disabilities. Differences in perceived stress were hypothesized to occur due to the influence of coping efforts in both groups rather than predicting a priori that parents of children with disabilities would report more stress. This study was based on the expectation that all parents of children with disabilities would not report significant stress.

Parents of preschoolers with mental retardation, autism, and with no disability were compared on a measure of perceived stress associated with the parent-child relationship and a measure of coping. Chi square analyses indicated that significant differences did not exist between groups of parents on scales associated with depression, stress related to parent characteristics, or total stress. Parent interviews provided qualitative information about similarities as well as differences. Statistically, groups did differ in their perceptions of child characteristics with parents of children with disabilities receiving significantly higher scores on scales associated with social desirability and child's level of physical activity (p < .01).

Analyses of variance results supported the hypothesis that stress was a function of coping efforts (p < .001) rather than of child condition. Results from this study provide support for a cognitive-phenomenological approach to stress. That is, stress is considered to be a transaction between individual (parent) characteristics and the environment (the child). These differences in results in comparison to previous studies are considered to be related to methodological issues and failure of some previous studies to consider parental characteristics. Results translate to an important clinical implication in that specific coping strategies used by a parent appear to mediate stress.