A Study of Stress in Mothers of Mentally Challenged Students
Ajit Deshpande1, Sanjay Kubde2, Rajshekhar Wavare3, Richa Nigam3, Rashmi Kulkarni4 and Ramkrishna Chandorkar51Department of Community Medicine, 604, Adarsh Appartment, Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences, Indore India.
2Department of Community Medicine, Indira Gandhi Medical College, Nagpur India.
3Department of Community Medicine, Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences, Indore India.
4Department of Biochemistry, Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences, Indore India.
5Department of Community Medicine, Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences, Indore India.
Corresponding Author E-mail: dr_ajitdeshpande@rediffmail.com
Abstract: To study stress in mothers of mentally challenged students, institutional based cross sectional study was carried out in mothers of 165 mentally challenged students of Nandanwan School and sheltered workshop, Nagpur from March 2004 to May 2005. Mothers were given questionnaire on resources and stress- short form having 52 questions in 4 different factors, viz. Parents and family problems, Pessimism, Child characteristics, Physical Incapacitation. . Of the 165 mothers, 159(96.36%) responded. It was found that in Factor I, mothers expressing mild and moderate stress were 26(16.35%) and 66(41.51%) respectively. 50(31.45%) and 17(10.69%) mothers expressed severe and very severe stress respectively. In Factor II 55(34.59%) and 82(51.57%) mothers experienced severe and very severe stress respectively. In Factor III 59 (37.11%) mothers expressed moderate and same no. of mothers showed severe stress. In Factor IV 46 (28.93%) mothers expressed mild stress, while 60 (37.74%) expressed moderate stress. Global stress- Global stress was assessed by adding scores of all 52 questions. 65 (40.88%) mothers experienced moderate and 76(47.80%) mothers experienced severe stress. Pessimism was found to be the most important factor.
Keywords: Mentally challenged students; stress in mothers Back to TOC