Assessment of Psychological Well-Being and Coping Strategies among Family Caregivers of Children with Down Syndrome

Abstract

Background: Family caregivers of children with Down Syndrome are frequently unstable andforego their psychological well-being, suffer additional economic difficulties, ill health and copeineffectively than families without disabilities. Aim: This study aimed to assess psychological well- being and coping strategies among family caregivers of children with Down Syndrome. Design: Adescriptive research design was utilized in this study. Setting: This study was carried out in the Genes Clinics of Down Syndrome in the specialized clinics of the university pediatric hospital affiliatedtoAin Shams University Hospitals. Subjects: A sample of 60 family caregivers of children with DownSyndrome. The study tools were: 1) Interviewing Questionnaire, 2) Brief-COPE inventory (Carver, 1997) and 3) Ryff’s Psychological well-being scale (1989). The results: The study showed that familycaregivers of children with Down Syndrome depended mainly on emotion-focused coping strategies inmanaging burden of child caregiving and the most frequent used emotion focused coping strategies were religion, acceptance and venting while the most frequent used problem-focused coping strategywas use of instrumental support. Concerning to psychological well-being, more than half of familycaregivers of children with Down Syndrome had psychological well-being less than usual. Conclusions: There was a negative statistically significant correlation between psychological well- being and all types of emotion-focused coping strategies except for humor, acceptance and religion. Meanwhile, there was a positive statistically significant correlation between level of psychological well-being and all subscales of problem-focused coping strategies. Recommendations: Future researchto assess challenges encountered by siblings of Down Syndrome children and to apply supportiveintervention that promotes positive relationships and attitudes as well as Establishment of counselingclinics for parents and siblings to improve their psychological well-being and coping strategies