Examining the stress and happiness levels of the parents of individuals with down syndrome according to their childrens' participation in sports activities

The aim of this study is to examine the stress levels and happiness levels of the parents of individuals with Down syndrome according to their participation in physical activities. For this purpose, parents' stress and happiness levels were examined in terms of their children's participation in physical activity, sports license status and weekly exercise frequency, parents' age, education status, monthly income status and physical activity status. A total of 105 parents, 59 mothers and 46 fathers, who had children diagnosed with Down syndrome, participated in the study voluntarily. The data in the study were personal information form, Parental Stress Index Short Form adapted to Turkish by Mert, Hallioğlu and Ankaralı (2008), and Oxford Happiness Scale Short Form developed by Hills and Argyle (2002) and adapted into Turkish by Doğan and Çötok (2011). was collected using In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, independent groups t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and LSD Post Hoc. tests have been used. Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficients were calculated to determine the reliability of the scales. According to the results of the analysis, there is a statistically significant difference between down syndrome individuals' participation in physical activity, sports license status and weekly exercise frequency variables and their parents' parental stress index in all sub-dimensions and their happiness levels (p<0.01). While there is a statistically significant difference between all sub-dimensions and happiness levels of the parental stress index, and the age and physical activity status of the parents (p<0.01), there is no significant difference between the education level variable (p>0.05). In addition, while there was a statistically significant difference between mothers and fathers in the parental stress index parental distress sub-dimension (p<0.01), there was no significant difference in the other sub-dimensions of the parental stress index and happiness levels (p>0.05). Finally, while there was no difference between the income levels of the parents and the parent-child interaction sub-dimension of the parental stress index (p>0.05), there was a significant difference in the other sub-dimensions of the parental stress index and happiness levels (p<0.01). The results showed that the stress levels of the parents of the children who participated in physical activities were lower than those who did not, and their happiness levels were higher; It shows that parents of children who do sports with a license have a lower level of stress and a higher level of happiness than those who do sports without a license. In addition, it can be said that parents who do physical activity have a lower level of stress and a higher level of happiness than parents who do not do physical activity. Finally, it was concluded that the stress levels of the parents of the children with a weekly exercise frequency of less than 3 days were high and the happiness levels were low. The results show that the participation of individuals with DS in physical activities and exercising regularly three days reduce their parents' stress levels and their happiness levels.