A Study on Stress Level, Happiness, Challenges, and Emotional Bonds of Parents having Children with Disabilities Availing Services at NIEPMD, Chennai

Abstract

Being a parent is normally a joyous occasion and creating emotional bond between parents and their children is special, but in certain situations, lives of parents' are plagued with challenges and are concerned about their ability to maintain their child's physical, emotional, or economic well-being. It is very important to understand as how it is like to be a parent, because this helps to enhance the wellbeing of both parents and their children, especially if the child born is having disabilities. The study here consisting of equal distribution of male and female (N =100, Male = 50 and female = 50) coming to NIEPMD for rehabilitation services were taken as samples to find out stress level of parents of children having disabilities based on gender, based on age of the parent, based on the educational qualification of the parent, based the diagnosis of the children having disabilities. The Parental Stress Scale (PSS) questionnaire developed by Berry & Jones (1995) is a standardized scale and was used to assess parental stress. The researchers obtained due permission to use the scale from the author. The findings of the study revealed that 63% of the parents are having high level of stress in particular female parent are experiencing high level of stress (33%). Findings based on age shows that 35% of parents aged between 31-40 are having high level of stress, based on educational qualification of the parent 27% of the parents who completed under graduation are having high level of stress and based on the diagnosis of the children 25% of the parents having children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder are having high level of stress. The result implicated that parents having children with Autism Spectrum Disorder are having high level of stress. Understanding these fundamental results and trends allows practitioners and researchers to develop customized interventions and support methods to promote positive parenting experiences and improve the well-being of parents and children.