Investigation of the relationship between stress coping styles and life satisfaction levels of mothers with special needs children

In this study, it was aimed to Decipher the relationship between the stress coping styles of mothers with special needs children and their life satisfaction levels. In our study, relational screening model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used. The universe of our research consists of mothers who reside in the province of Istanbul and have children with various degrees of special needs, while the sample consists of 212 mothers who receive rehabilitation services within the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality OZGEM and have special needs children with various demographic characteristics. Within the scope of the research, the Personal Information Form, the Stress Coping Styles Scale and the Life Satisfaction Scale were used as data collection tools. By moving the scales to the online environment, it was ensured that families with special needs children answered the questions digitally. The data obtained from the scales were analyzed using IBM SPSS 24.0 package program. In the research; distribution analysis, descriptive analysis and parametric hypothesis tests, independent sample T test and Oneway anova analysis were applied. In order to determine the difference between the groups, Post Dec (LSD) analysis was performed. In addition, Pearson Correlation analysis was applied to Decipher the relationship between the Stress Coping Styles Scale and the Life Satisfaction Scale. In our research, it has been determined that the average score of Mothers with special needs children differs significantly between the age variable and the helpless approach sub-dimension, the marital status variable and the confident approach sub-dimension. There was no significant difference found between the self-confident approach, helpless approach, submissive approach, optimistic approach, social support search approach, job, income level, education participation, child's age, gender, disability status variables of the coping scale and its sub. While there was a significant difference between the life satisfaction scale and the income level and gender variables of mothers with children with special needs, there was a significant difference between the variables of the child's gender and Deciency, there was no significant difference found in the variables of age, marital status, occupation, participation/ non-participation in education, child's age, disability status. As a result, it has been found that the total score averages of mothers with special needs children, the stress coping scale and its sub-dimensions, as well as their life satisfaction levels, are at a low level. In other words, the stress levels of mothers with special needs children affect their life satisfaction levels. Keywords: A child with special needs, disabled, mother, stress, life satisfaction