Investigation of self-respect and stress level in mothers with physically disabled individuals and in mothers with mental disabled individuals

The aim of the study is to reveal the situations faced by mothers while overcoming the problems with their disabled children and to provide a better understanding of them. It is aimed to compare the self-esteem and stress levels of mothers with physically disabled children and mothers with mentally disabled children. This study was carried out in Sultangazi which is district of Istanbul. The research consists of mothers who live in Sultangazi district of Istanbul and have a disabled child. The sample of the study was determined by cluster sampling method and residing in Istanbul Sultangazi; consists of the mothers of the disabled individuals who attend the rehabilitation center. It consists of 112 individuals who were chosen randomly and voluntarily to participate in the research. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was used to measure the self-esteem of the people participating in the study. The Perceived Stress Scale was used to determine the stress level. SPSS 24 package program was used to analyze the data collected from the scales. Statistical significance level was accepted as p<0.05. It was observed that 32.1% of the mothers included in the study are in the "34-41" age group, most of them are primary school graduates (37.5%), 83.9% are married, most of them are in the "2201-4000" (56.3%) income group, 29.5% of them had children in the "7-9" age group, and the rate of disability was 55.4% "mental". On the other hand, mothers' mean self-perceptions were found to be 32.2±4.0 and their stress total averages to be 40.1±6.4. As a result, while there is no significant difference in self-esteem according to education, age, marital status, income status, maternal age and disability group in mothers with physically disabled individuals and mothers with mentally disabled individuals, there is a significant difference in stress variable according to disability group. While a negative and low level statistical relationship was found between the education status of the mothers and the stress sub-parameter "self-efficacy" (p<0,05), a negative and moderate relationship was found between the mothers' self-perception and the stress sub-parameter "self-efficacy" and "total" (p<0,05).