The purpose of this study was to investigate the family functions and stress coping strategies in the parents of the mentally retarded. one hundred fifty nine sets of parents were selected randomly from the special education schools. one hundred seve...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the family functions and stress coping strategies in the parents of the mentally retarded. one hundred fifty nine sets of parents were selected randomly from the special education schools. one hundred seventy six sets of parents were selected randomly from the kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high schools. The measures were FACESⅢ and Multy Stress Coping Strategies Inventory. Cronbach's α, t-test, 1-way ANOVA, 3-way ANOVA, MANOVA, and Scheffe-test were conducted for the data analysis.
The following hypotheses were tested:
1. There are significant differences in family function among different family environments, in parents of mentally retarded students.
2. There are significant differences in stress coping strategies according to the family environments, in parents of mentally retarded students.
3. There are significant differences between the scores of stress coping strategies according to the family function levels, in parents of mentally retarded students.
The major findings of this study were as follows:
1 The degree of family function could be different, according to the family environments. such as, handicaps of children, monthly accounts, and an educational course of parents.
2 There were differences in parents' stress coping strategies by their family environments. Such as, handicaps of children, sex of children, school age of children, sex of parents, monthly accounts, and an educational course of parents.
3 Parents of mentally retarded students did show some differences in stress coping strategies according to levels of family function. Parents of high levels of family function used better stress coping strategies than those of low level family function.
However, this study had some limits. The following aspects should be considered in future research.
This study used parents, evaluations of family cohesion and family adaptability, but other family members may evaluate differently. Therefore, future research of family system should not only deal with specific members of the family, but all members of the family.
Finally, this study used FACESⅢ, which was developed abroad. In Korea, it is desirable to develop a scale according to a set of criteria which are geared to Korean culture through research of various family types.