Although a family-centered approach to health care for developmentally disabled children has been advocated, existing systems of care have not adequately addressed the support needs of the family system and the essential role that parents play in the daily care of these children. The overall purpose of this research is to examine family system adaptation to the care of a developmentally disabled child using the Resiliency Model of Family Stress, Adjustment, and Adaptation Framework. Relationships among family system demands(stressors, strains, transitions, child's illness factors) and family system strengths and capabilities(resource of social support) were examined to determine their separate and combined contribution to explaining the variability inn family system outcomes(family system coping).
The subject for this study was 46 families who have a child with developmental disabilities(mental retardation and/or autism) from three special educational programs in Seoul, Korea, Results from correlation and hierachial regression analysis revealed that perceived social support operated as a resiliency factor between family stress and coping. Child and family characteristics appeared to be important predictors of perceived social support and coping.
In summary, there is evidence that the resource of social support as a family strength and capability was found to improve the family coping. These findings also must be viewed within the context that sample of families of children with disabilities was relatively small and eligible families from support group of special educational program.
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