Article Text
Abstract
Introduction Having a mentally disabled child may bring some challenging situations alongside the caring period. Mothers are affected in most of times due to these experienced difficulties and during this challenging period mothers who couldn’t get enough social support can suffer from burnout syndrome.
Methods This study was carried out among mothers with mentally disabled children between March and June 2011 to measure level of social support given and fatigueness perceived by mothers. Mothers with mentally disabled children living in city centre of Trabzon who were given special education in primary level of public schools (n = 128) were included in the study. The data was gathered by using mother-and-child introductory forms, Maslach burnout inventory, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS).
Results 40.6% of mothers involved in the study were above 40 years old. It was found that average score of emotional exhaustion subscale of Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was 14.5 ± 7.6, average low personal accomplishment and depersonalization scores of MBI were 9.7 ± 5.7 and 4.5 ± 3.7 accordingly.
Other average significant subscale score of MSPSS was 19.9 ± 8.0, additionally it was found that average friend subscale and family subscale scores of MSPSS were 8.2 ± 8.6 and 20.0 ± 7.9 respectively. MSPSS scores and BMI scores of the mothers was found to be significantly correlated to each other.
Conclusion In the study, mothers were found to have moderate level of perceived social support and had burnout feelings. It is advised that mothers with mentally disabled children should get more social support.
- Mentally Disabled Children
- Mothers
- Burnout
- Social Support