Stress and coping among mothers of cerebral palsy clients with a view to prepare a management protocol

Vol.2  No.4

Year: 2013

 
Issue: Nov-Jan

Title : Stress and coping among mothers of cerebral palsy clients with a view to prepare a management protocol

Author Name : Ramesh kumari, Supriya Palwinder Singh

Synopsis :

The purpose of the study to assess the stress and coping among the mothers of children with cerebral palsy. Children with cerebral palsy display prominent motor dysfunction associated with other developmental disorders. Parenting a child with cerebral palsy presents a number of challenges and stress. The children with CP, parents are heavily involved in self care activities which may add an additional challenges and stress to the parents. The incidence of cerebral palsy is about 2 per 1000 live births. The study was conducted in selected rehabilitation institutes in Amritsar. The study sample comprising 150 mothers of cerebral palsy children. Subjects were selected with the snowball sampling method. The research design used was descriptive design. Each subject was evaluated using Berry parental stress scale for stress and 5 point Likert’s scale for coping. The majority of mothers 80% were with moderate level of stress, 20% were with severe stress and no mothers were with mild level of stress, the majority of mothers 34.6% were with moderate level of coping, 33.3% were with low level of coping and only 32.1% were with high level of stress. The highest level of coping with the mean percentage around 80 % was in the aspect of sleep. A negative correlation was found between stress and coping among mothers. There is significant association between Age of the child (χ2 = 8.52), Gender of the child (χ2 = 8.52), Occupation (χ2 = 3.91), Type of family (χ2 = 10.55), Number of children (χ2 = 39.7) and level of stress. There is significant association between Income of the parent (χ2 = 18.8), No of the children (χ2 = 11.5) and level of coping. Mother who had higher level of stress in caring their children with cerebral palsy were not following adequate coping strategy so, the investigator concluded that there is a need to develop management protocol, in that management protocol encourage the mothers to find ways for the child to interact with the environment to promote development and early interventions can helps the mothers to learn and meet their Childs special needs such as physical, occupational, speech therapy and educational needs. The nurse can helps the mothers to meet these needs of the child with cerebral palsy in preschool, offices, clinics and other setting and nurse can refer to them to appropriate support group to an organization private as well as government in India for the cerebral palsy children.