Determining family stress, perceived social support and caregiver burden of mothers who have children wıth intellectual disabilities

This research is carried out to determine family stres, perceived social support, the satisfaction level of this support and caregiver burden of mothers who have children with intellectual disabilities.The study group of the research which is designed by using relational screening model consists of 104 mothers whose children are educated at special schools, special classes and mainstreaming programmes. Three instruments were used in the research: The Questionnaire on Resources and Stress-Turkish, Revised Parental Social Support Scale and Family Burden Assesment Scale. Independent Sample t Test, Analysis of Variance, Mann Whitney U, Kruskall Wallis H, Scheffe, Dunnet?s C Test and Spearman Brown Correlation Coefficient are applied in data analysis. Percentage and frequency is calculated for the distribution of the questions examining the social support network of mothers.At the end of these analysis, it is determined that mothers who have children with intellectual disabilities, received a high score of the sub dimension of pessimism in The Questionnaire on Resources and Stress-Turkish and sub dimension of emotional burden in Family Burden Assessment Scale. According to Revised Parental Social Support Scale, it is found that mothers have got highest support from sub dimension of social cohesion and have been most satisfied with the support of social cohesion. It is found that there is a significant negative linear relation among the social support levels of mothers, sub dimensions of social support, satisfaction of these types of supports and family stress and caregiver burden. In other words, as mothers? perceived social support increases, family stress and caregiver burden decreases. It is determined that mothers? family stress, perceived social support and caregiver burden differ in terms of educational environment and severity of disability; there is a significant positive linear relation among perceived social support, sub dimensions of social support and perception of inadequacy; there is a significant negative linear relation among perception of inadaquacy and family stres.