Stress symptoms and social anxiety level comparison of the mothers of those children between 7 - 11 ages who are having a special education for the disabled

Understanding the mental problems, which the families especially the mothers of the disabled persons confront, is mandatory in order to serve them and their children better. The disabled are generally not being able to cope with life on their own therefore; they may need the support of the other family members, especially their mothers. This condition causes the mothers to take more responsibilities than the responsibilities they would have to handle by having a normal child. The emotional, physical, economical, social burdens taking place as a result of having a disabled child, causes the mother to face the stress she would face in normal conditions more intensively. Moreover, most of the disabled children?s mothers are subjected to psychological and physical disorders. However, the only reason for the mothers of the disabled children to face stress or psychological disorders is not having a disabled child. The researches indicate that there are many factors, which may trigger stress and psychological problems, except having a disabled child.Based upon aforementioned information, the purpose of this research is to compare the stress symptoms and social anxiety levels of the mothers of those children between ages of 7-11, who have are trained under a special disabled education program. The sample group of the research is composed of the mothers of 108 mentally handicapped children, who are trained in special education centers located in Istanbul Bagcilar. Personal Information Form, Stress Symptoms Scale and Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale have been implemented on the attendees and the data obtained have been analyzed by using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) for Windows 17.0 program. Between groups comparisons on the basis type of comparison and correlation associative screening method is applied. Result remover statistics one-way Anova, T-test and regression analysis were applied. The findings are interpreted in the 95 % confidence interval 0.05 significance level.While evaluating the findings obtained at the end of the research, it is determined that the mothers of the mentally retarded children has been exposed to stress and social phobia.The regression model, which was done in order to test the stress symptoms and social phobia exposure status of the mothers of the mentally retarded children, who attended the research, is statistically significant. (F=13,063; p=0,000<0,05). According to the findings; a significant relationship between the stress and social phobia rates of the mentally retarded children?s mothers is found in positive direction at level .33 (r=.33; p= 0,000<0,05). Accordingly, it can be said that the social phobia rate increases as the stress rate increases and stress rate increases as the social phobia rate increases. In consideration of these findings; while doing assessments about the mentally retarded children?s mothers either in the education centers or in health institutions, it has to be considered that the mothers may also face other mental disorders except being exposed to stress. Both this research and plenty of researches in the literature show that the stress, which the mentally retarded children?s mothers live, may be caused not only because of the retardation, which their children face, but also because of many other reasons.Key Words: Mentally retarded children, stress, social phobia, mothers