Stress and relief: parents attending a respite program.

OBJECTIVE The objectives of this study were to examine changes in stress among parents of children with special needs in a respite service and consider parental experience of the service. METHODS Families who were enrolled in a ten-month centre-based respite program were invited to participate in the evaluation. Change in parent stress, indexed by the Parent Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF), was determined. These results were compared with findings from exploratory qualitative interviews with a subset of parents and a small comparison group who also completed the PSI-SF. RESULTS At baseline, 69% of parents (n=45) had high total stress scores on the PSI-SF. No significant improvements were detected on parent stress over time or differences from improvements in the comparison group. In contrast, the subgroup of parents (n=10) who participated in the qualitative interviews described substantial benefits from the respite program including a sense of relief and having time for other activities. CONCLUSIONS It is proposed that the respite program may have provided a temporary break to parents thereby bestowing a sense of relief, but was not adequate to impact on more chronic stress patterns, suggesting that these are related but separate constructs and experiences.