Individual Psychological and Family Resources of Mothers Raising Children with Disabilities

194

Abstract

An important task of clinical psychology is to study the resources of coping with difficult life situations and the stress of children with disabilities’ mothers. The purpose of the study is to analyze the differences between individual and family psychological resources of mothers raising disabled children and mothers of neurotypical children and to identify groups of mothers by the level of their psychological resources. 392 mothers took part in the study using the author's socio-biographical questionnaire, the self-activation of personality method, a short version of the resilience test, the COPE questionnaire, and the family viability assessment scale (139 raise disabled children (medium age 42.58+7.4), 253 – healthy children (medium age 42.63+8.4)). It is shown that mothers of children with disabilities estimate the intensity of events related to diseases and problems in relationships higher than mothers of healthy children. Mothers of children with disabilities are distinguished by a reduced level of resilience resources, some components of the self-activation resource (physical activity), the severity of instrumental resources, such as: the concentration on emotions, active coping, suppression of competing activities, planning, an active cognitive coping style. But the size of the effect in the differences is small. Based on cluster analysis, three groups of mothers were identified, characterized by a peculiar profile of individual and family psychological resources: "resource", "moderately resource", "insufficiently resource". The specific features of each of the profiles and the possibilities of applying the obtained data in practice are shown.

General Information

Keywords: difficult life situations, coping resources, mothers of children with disabilities, mothers of conditionally healthy children, resilience, family viability

Journal rubric: Empirical Research

Article type: scientific article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/cpse.2023120305

Funding. The reported study was funded by Russian Science Foundation (RSF), project number 22-28-00820 (Psychological resources of socially vulnerable groups in the face of modern challenges (on the example of people with disabilities and their families).

Received: 01.09.2023

Accepted:

For citation: Odintsova M.A., Lubovsky D.V., Prudnikova M.G., Borodkova V.I. Individual Psychological and Family Resources of Mothers Raising Children with Disabilities [Elektronnyi resurs]. Klinicheskaia i spetsial'naia psikhologiia = Clinical Psychology and Special Education, 2023. Vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 98–120. DOI: 10.17759/cpse.2023120305. (In Russ., аbstr. in Engl.)

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Information About the Authors

Maria A. Odintsova, PhD in Psychology, Docent, Head of the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy of Distance Learning, Faculty of Distance Learning, Moscow State University of Psychology & Education, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3106-4616, e-mail: mari505@mail.ru

Dmitry V. Lubovsky, PhD in Psychology, associate professor, Professor of the UNESCO Department “Cultural and Historical Psychology of Childhood”, Moscow State University of Psychology & Education, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7392-4667, e-mail: lubovsky@yandex.ru

Marianna G. Prudnikova, MA in Psychology, Leading Manager of the Psychological, Methodological and Advisory Assistance to Parents Sector of the University Multidisciplinary Psychological Center, Moscow State University of Psychology & Education, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1504-3383, e-mail: prudnikovamg@mgppu.ru

Victoria I. Borodkova, MA in Psychology, Moscow State University of Psychology & Education, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6518-4750, e-mail: borodkovavi@fdomgppu.ru

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