Parents of disabled more stressed, ill
Posted on: Tuesday, 17 February 2009, 21:26 CST
Raising a child with a disability causes more daily stress and long-range health problems than parenting a child without disabilities, U.S. researchers say.
Stress and health ills were greater among parents of disabled children, U.S. researchers found.
The study, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found parents who had children with disabilities -- that included attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder -- reported having at least one stressor on 50 percent of the study days compared with 40 percent among other parents.
The parents of disabled children also had a greater number of stressors and a greater number of physical health problems.
When researchers evaluated saliva samples from the parents to measure the changing patterns of a biological marker linked to stress -- cortisol -- they found parents of children with disabilities showed patterns of chronic stress much higher than normal on days when the parents spent more time with their children.
Our findings indicate the magnitude of the additional daily stress that these families face,
lead study author Marsha Mailick Seltzer of the University of Wisconsin in Madison said in a statement.
Researchers used data including telephone interviews from the Midlife in the United States study, for 82 parents -- average age 57 years -- of children with disabilities and for a similar group of parents of children without disabilities.
Source: United Press International
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User Comments (3)
| 3. |
Posted by Peter Geisser on 02/20/2009, 20:04 You have to love studies that state the obvious! Spend the money giving parents tickets to a movie with beer and popcorn! Relieve some stress, spend an hour with someone's special kids. |
| 2. |
Posted by JoMama on 02/20/2009, 13:32 My thoughts exactly Wayne! As the parent of one of "these" kids, I can tell you that I would much rather they'd have taken the money they spent on this "study" and put it towards finding an answer for our kids!!! Most people have NO CLUE what a day is like for a child (or the parents) with severe learning and cognitive disabilities. And unless you are one of the lucky ones that has unlimited $$/ resources at your disposal, you're pretty much on your own...and on your way to never having the $$ or the energy for anything other than making your child's life bearable, let alone successful. |
| 1. |
Posted by Wayne McFarlane on 02/19/2009, 10:58 We needed a study to tell us this? Often when people talk about children with disabilities they do not think of the parents who are coming home from work and doing all they can their child. These parents should often be seen as heros. Remember these children are also our future. |
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