[Effects of an empowerment program on the burden of mothers having a child with cerebral palsy]

The purpose of this study was to develop an empowerment program as a nursing intervention for mothers who care for a child with cerebral palsy at home and to determine the effects of the program on those mothers' self efficacy, coping behavior and burden.

An non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used in this study. An Empowerment program was developed based on Dunst & Trivette's model. Using the program, the study was carried out from Dec. 13, 2003 to Jan. 17, 2004, mothers whose children, aged 1 to 6, were outpatients of the Dept. of Rehabilitation Medicine, at P University Hospital or registered at educational institutions for early disabled children. The experimental group of subjects were included in the new empowerment program which was held for two and half hours every week for 6 times.

After treatment with the Empowerment Program, the experimental group was found to be significantly increased in score for self efficacy(t=4.55, p<.01), coping behavior(t=5.54, p<.001), objective burden(t=-3.96, p<.01) and subjective burden(t=-5.05, p<.01), in comparison to the control group.

The Empowerment Program is very effective in increasing self efficacy and coping behavior of mothers having a child with cerebral palsy and decreasing their burden. Finally, this study would recommend that an empowerment program should be extended to community facilities such as public health offices and welfare centers.