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Psychological distress of parents of infants with Down syndrome
B S Scott1, L Atkinson, H L Minton
1University of Hong Kong.
American Journal of Mental Retardation : AJMR
|November 5, 1997
Abstract:
The distress level of parents who had infants with Down syndrome (study parents) was compared to that of control parents of infants without disability (infants were all less than 2 years of age). Data were collected in two independent surveys. We matched subjects case-by-case on socioeconomic status. Analysis of pooled data indicated significantly greater depression for the study parents. However, effect sizes were small, and the prevalence of clinical depression was 5.56% (n = 108) among matched study parents and 4.26% (n = 188) among unmatched study parents. Parenting an infant with Down syndrome may cause less distress than previously thought.