Coping Strategies in Primary Caregivers of Intellectually Disabled Children

Abstract

Nurturing and rearing a child with intellectual disability is a far-reaching and taxing task. The parents or the caretakers may possibly confront with numerous errands and challenges which can be unfamiliar and intimidating. Living with such child can be a substantial stressor resulting in cognitive and mental difficulties in parents or caregivers thus affecting their way of coping. Parental coping styles and presence of social support in relationship with developmental disabilities can impact the level of parental distress (Dabrowska and Pistula, 2010). The coping of parents having children with intellectually disability is dependent upon a variety of factors like age, gender, type and severity of problem, social support, etc. The present study was an attempt to assess and compare the coping strategies of parents having children with intellectual disability and parents having children with average intelligence. A two group design was employed. A sample of 100 healthy parents (50 having mild intellectually disabled children and 50 having children with average intelligence) was administered Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI- Hindi version) by Bhushan, Gautam and Greenglass (2010). Data were analyzed by using t- test. Significant differences were found on most of the domains of coping between parents having children with intellectual disability and parents having children with average intelligence. The implications for the parents and children are discussed.