Psychological characteristics of mothers of children with disabilities

The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychological characteristics of mothers of children with disabilities. This study was performed under the hypotheses that, at the initial diagnosis of the children's disabilities, (1) the mothers suffered from serious psychological distress; (2) the more severe the child's disability was, the more serious the mother's psychological distress was; and that (3) the mother's psychological distress might be resolved within 8 weeks of rehabilitational interventions. The results were as follows: 1) mothers of children with disabilities showed significant (p < 0.05) somatization, depression, anxiety, hostility, and phobic anxiety more so than the control group; 2) there was no significant difference in T scores of 9 dimensions of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revision (SCL-90-R) of the mothers at the initial diagnosis of children's disabilities according to severity of child's disability; 3) there was no significant difference in T scores of 9 dimensions of SCL-90-R in mothers of children with disabilities between at initial evaluation and after 8 weeks of rehabilitational interventions. In conclusion, : 1) mothers of children with disabilities suffered from serious psychological distress at the initial diagnosis of their child's disability; 2) the severity of the child's disability had little influence on the degree of the mother's initial psychological distress; 3) this distress did not resolve with only 8 weeks of rehabilitational interventions. Therefore, effective rehabilitational programs should provide sufficient opportunities for repeated follow-up interviews which offer not only adequate information on the children's disabilities but also psychological support for the mothers.