PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AND PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT IN MOTHER OF DIFFERENTLY ABLED CHILDREN: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Intellectual disability is a developmental disability characterized by impairments of general mental abilities that impact adaptive functioning in three domains, or areas, these domains determine how well an individual copes with everyday tasks (APA, 2015). 

1.  The conceptual domain contains skills in language, reading, writing, math, reasoning, knowledge, and memory. 

2.  The social domain refers to empathy, social judgment, interpersonal communication skills, the ability to make and retain friendships, and similar capacities. 

3. The practical domain centers on self-management in areas such as personal care, job responsibilities, money management, recreation, and organizing school and work tasks.

Psychological well-being has been regarded as synonymous with mental health and quality of life, conceptualized as some combination of positive affective states such as happiness (the hedonic perspective) and functioning with optimal effectiveness in individual and social life (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Research suggests that Mothers of children with intellectual disability had low self-esteem than mother of children without intellectual disability and parents with higher self-efficacy show better physical health, more satisfaction with their relationship with the environment, better mental health.  (Singh, 2015) and most of the parents with intellectually disability child do not have good psychological well-being due to their multiple responsibilities (Paraeswari & Eijo, 2012)

Parents of children with disabilities frequently experience high levels of Depression (Benson & Karlof, 2009), lower levels of family adaptability and cohesion (Higgins, Bailey, & Pearce, 2005), and greater negative social and psychological impact (Baker et al., 2002; Emerson, 2003) when compared to parents of typically developing children.  

Social support, not limited to emotional support, provides a variety of functions such as guidance, social reinforcement, and practical assistance with tasks of daily living, and social stimulation (Dunst, 1994). Social support can come from various areas of society, for example from a spouse, grandparents, other family members, other parents, friends and professional agencies. Mothers tend to first seek support from other family members, as informal sources of support are believed to be more effective at reducing stress than formal sources (Boyd, 2002). A study done by Bodla & Saima (2012), it was found that parents having children with mental retardation needed social support from their family member.

Social support is strongly related to parent’s adaptation to stress, physical and psychological well-being, and positive attitudes toward the future of their children with mental retardation (Heller & Factor. 1993: Krauss, 1993; Stoneman &Crapps, 1988). Research also advocated that a positive association between family adjustment and social support (Henderson and Vandenberg, 2002). A study done by Kerenhappachu & Godishala (2014), result show that Mothers of children with Mental Retardation showed significant difference in social support with mothers of normal children in the areas of support seeking and actually received support.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1.  To assess the psychological well-being of the mother of children with Intellectual disability and with normal controls.  

2.  To examine the social support of the mother of children with Intellectual disability and with normal controls.  

3.  To examine the relationship among psychological well-being and social support of the mother of children with Intellectual disability.

METHODOLOGY

The present study was cross sectional, hospital based and single contact study conducted in the Out Patient Department (OPD) of the Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry & Allied Sciences (RINPAS), Kanke, Ranchi for experiment group and nearby areas of Kanke, Ranchi for normal controls group. Purposive sampling technique was used for selecting samples. Sample size was 60 mothers out of which 30 mother of children with mental retardation (Intellectual disability), who attended out-patient department (OPD) of RINPAS and diagnosed as per ICD-10 DCR (WHO, 1993) and 30 mother of normal children were taken for the study. 

Detailed explanation was given to the participants about the purpose of the study and then signed consent form to the participants after that the socio-demographic & clinical data sheet was applied for experimental and control groups, it is semi-structured, self-prepared Performa especially drafted for this study. It contains information about mentally retarded child’s and parent’s socio-demographic variables (like age, sex, religion, education, marital status, domicile and occupation and socio-economic status etc.) 

Then, after the others scale i.e. psychological general well-being Index (Olivier Chassany et al., 2004)-consists of 22 self-administered items, rated on a 6-point scale, which assess the psychological and general well-being of respondents in six domains: Anxiety, Depression, Positive well-being, Self-control, General health and Vitality. Each item has six possible scores (from 0 to 5), referring to the last 4 weeks of the subject’s if time. Each domain is deûned by a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 5 items and social support questionnaire (Hindi Adaptation, Nehra & Kulhara, 1987), this scale measures perceive social support i.e. social support as perceived by the subject. It had total 18 items and 4 possible responses may be, 4=agree a lot, 3=agree quite a bit, 2=agree somewhat, 1=disagree. Some items were positively worded and scoring remaining same 1, 2, 3, 4 and some negatively worded, so the scoring was to be reversed for these items i.e. 4, 3, 2, 1. Score indicates the amount of Perceived social support. Higher score indicates more perceived social support and vice versa, questionnaires were administered among the mother of children with Intellectual disability and normal control. A total 60 samples were selected as participants of both the groups. Age range of the children with mental retardation and normal of either sex was 6-14 years and mother age range “between” 25 to 45 for experimental and normal group for exclusion criteria. The questionnaires were then scored, the obtained data was tabulated, was subjected to relevant statistical analysis and inferences were drawn out.

Conflict of interest: None
Role of funding source: None