Counseling Intervention for Parents of Children with Down Syndrome on their Needs, Stress and Coping Strategies

Background: Having child with disability is a major difficult that negatively affects parents .
Down syndrome is one of the most common disabilities that have a negative impact on parents’ health and
well-being and may force them to evaluate their plans, goals, and relationships in light of restrictions and
limitations associated with their children's disability. Parents may experience a need for a counselling
intervention for utilize available support resources, or look for alternative ones, as an attempt to adopt
strategies to regain their equilibrium between resources and disability needs to cope effectively
with stresses associated with their children’s down
syndrome to alleviate their stress, developing
appropriate and effective coping strategies .The aim of
this study was to investigate the effect of
counseling intervention for parents of children with down syndrome on their needs, stress and coping
strategies. Design: A quasi-experimental design was used to conduct the study. Setting: This study was
conducted at the Genes Clinics of Down syndrome in the specialized clinics of the university pediatric
hospital affiliated to Ain Shams University Hospitals. Subjects: A purposive sample was obtained
from fifty parents who accompanying their children with down syndrome in the previously mentioned
settings. Tools of data collection : Data were collected using the following tools; An interviewing
questionnaire to assess parents' socio demographic data and health assessment of children with down
syndrome , Family Need Questionnaire to examine the needs of parents of children with down
syndrome., Parent Stress Index Scale to measure stress associated with parenting of children with down
syndrome , and the Ways of Coping (Revised) Questionnaire to describes a number of thoughts and
acts (coping strategies) which used by parents to cope with a threatening situation. Results: The study
results revealed that there was a highly statistically significant difference between pre and post
counseling intervention regarding total level of needs, stress level and coping of parents having
children with down syndrome, also there was a positive correlations between studied parents' needs,
stress and their coping in pre and post counseling intervention. Conclusion: It was concluded that the
application of counseling intervention had a positive effect on the improvement of the level of parents'
needs, alleviating stress and promote coping strategies among parents of children with down syndrome.
Recommendations: Conducting psycho-educational training program focused on reducing parental
stress and training parent how to deal effectively with their disabled children under stress.