出版社：Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine, Gujarat
摘要：Background: The diagnosis of mentalretardation in a child can trigger a range ofemotional responses in parents & across familysystems.Objectives: The objective was to know thepsychosocial impact on the parents having achild with mental retardation & its relationshipwith type of mental retardation.Materials & Methods: A cross sectional studyof 100 parents of mentally retarded childrenwho were enrolled during 2006 at MitraRehabilitation School, a special school formentally retarded children in Anand district,Gujarat. Study was done using NIMHDISABILITY IMPACT SCALE of Nationalinstitute for the mentally handicapped,Secunderabad. Statistical Package for SocialSciences (SPSS) software was used to computethe¦Ö2and ANOVA tests.Results: There were 45% having mild, 46%with moderate and 9% with severe mentalretardation, out of which 69% were male and31% were female. There was no significantassociation found between specific thoughts ofparents & type of mental retardation. There wasno significant loss of support to parents fromspouse, family, in laws, relatives, friends andneighborhood. Unemployed fathers hadsignificantly (P value-0.04) more negativelyaffected relationship than the rest of the fathers.There was not significant association foundbetween type of mental retardation and siblingeffects.Conclusion: Parents have enormous emotionalproblems and suffer from mental worriesbecause of having a child with mentalretardation. Family intervention programmesneed to be focused on early building andstrengthening the natural support systems for theparents
