Stress and Family Burden in Mothers of Children with Disabilities

The present study was designed to assess and compare parenting stress and family burden in mothers of children with disabilities and children without disability. For this purpose, a multi group design was adopted which consisted of five groups of mothers viz. mothers of children with mental disability, mothers of children with both mental and physical disability, mothers of children with physical disability, mothers of deaf and dumb children and mothers of children without disability. Parenting stress index and family burden scale were administered on 125 mothers of children with disabilities and without disability (25mothers in each group), selected from three districts of Haryana state. For statistical analysis, ttest, simple analysis of variance and Duncan‟s post hoc test were used. Results revealed that mothers of children with both mental and physical disability and mothers of children with mental disability scored significantly higher level of parenting stress and family burden compared to mothers of children with physical disability, mothers of deaf and dumb children, and mothers of children without disability.