Coping Strategies of Mothers having Children with Special Needs

Abstract

Families with a child who has special health care needs experience life differently than other families. Mothers appear to carry the larger burden of care and may feel a need to be with their child at all times and experience stress related to coping with the heavy load of care giving. the current descriptive research design is aimed to identify existing coping strategies of mothers who have children with special needs and determine whether there is a relationship between the coping strategies and the mothers’ demographic variables. Mother's coping strategies were assessed using the Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scale (F-COPES). The study concluded that there is significance relationship between age and both reframing and passive appraisal, as well as between birth order and mobilizing family to acquire and accept help. The study recommended that future research should be done on larger populations and additional research might address the coping strategies of other family members, such as siblings and the extended family.

Key Wards : Coping strategies, mothers, children, special needs, Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scale (F-COPES).