Parental Patterns of Care for their Children with Mental Disability

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Pediatric Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Ain Shams University-Cairo-Egypt.

Abstract

Background: Mental disabilities area lifelong condition that cannot be "cured"    however, there are ways in enrich their lives, help them have a pleasant childhood through parents as a care giver Aim: The study aimed to assess the parental patterns of care for their children with mental disabilities. Study Design: A descriptive study design. Setting: The study was conducted at two governmental intellectual development schools at Embaba and El-Dokki Sample size: involved (150) studied children suffering from mental disabilities and their accompanying parents. Tools for Data Collection: (I) A pre-designed structured interviewing questionnaire to assess parents knowledge about of mental  disabilities.(II) assessment sheet for parental patterns of care. (III) Parents socialization styles scale. Results: the study results revealed that, the mean age of studied children was (10.4±1.9).while the mean age of their mothers age was (37.7±1.4) the great majority of children receive care through mothers. More than half, of the parents had unsatisfactory knowledge regarding to disease of mental disabilities, approximately less than half of the children were had average pattern of care from parents in most daily living activities. Conclusion: The parents’ knowledge was unsatisfactory regarding to mental disability.  Also, the level of   parental patterns of care was ranged from poor to an average level.  There are positive correlation between parents’ knowledge and level of parents care. Recommendations: it could be recommended: continuous assessment for the level of knowledge of parents and implementation training programs for parents having children with mental disabilities to keep them update.

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