Aging families of adults with mental retardation: patterns and correlates of service use, need, and knowledge

Older mothers (N = 235, mean age = 70.3) of adult offspring were surveyed to identify patterns and correlates of the extent to which their families either used, knew about, needed, or had unmet needs for 17 family support services. Although variability was observed across these services, overall level of service use was low despite high knowledge. Also, the number of services needed exceeded number of services actually used. Greater service use occurred when offspring were younger, female, came from lower income households, and were receiving high levels of care from mothers who reported higher subjective burden and self-reported health. Families had larger unmet service needs when mothers were married, received less assistance from their children without mental retardation, and reported higher levels of subjective burden.