Effect of Nursing intervention program on Caring Styles and Coping Patterns of Parents Having Children with Down Syndrome

Abstract

The stress for caring for Down syndrome child places serious burden on Parents/caregivers. The professional nurse can help an active role by providing support & resources that enable parent's adaptation to the crisis as well as developing a positive attitude toward particular disorders. This study aimed to assess the effect of nursing intervention program on caring styles and coping patterns of parents having children with Down syndrome. It was achieved through; assess stressors facing parents of children with Down syndrome , styles of caring used for their children's problems, patterns of coping with stressors and develop and implement an intervention program. The study was carried out at the Institution of Graduate Childhood Studies affiliated to Ain Shams University. Tools used for data collection were: 1) Questionnaire dealing with -Socio-demographic characteristics of children and parents - Health condition and medical history of the child. - knowledge of parents about DS 2) Child degree of dependence scale in their daily living activities. 3) Parents physical and psychosocial stressors scale 4) Parenting caring styles scale: to assess caring styles used by parents with their children with Down syndrome. 5) Coping Patterns Scale: to assess the coping pattern of parents of children with Down syndrome to various stressors in their life. These tools were used twice pre and post implementation of intervention program. The results showed improvements, with highly statistically significant differences between before and after application of intervention program for those parents regarding to their knowledge, parenting styles and patterns of care toward their children with Down syndrome and coping patterns with physical and psychosocial stressors. Recommendations: Health education and counseling services should be available to DS family caregivers, training programs regarding the parenting styles suitable for children with Down syndrome and caring and coping strategies should be designed and implemented to the family caregivers of these children.