Abstract
Background: Parents of children with intellectual and developmental disorders often experience potentially traumatic events while caring for their children. Heightened posttraumatic stress (PTS) and posttraumatic growth (PTG) have been found in this population. Objective: We aimed to explore risk and protective factors for their PTS and PTG. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 385 parents (average age M = 43.14 years, SD = 7.40; 95.3% mothers). Results: Parenting trauma showed an adverse effect on developing PTS (beta = 0.25, p <.01) and a positive role in promoting PTG (beta = 0.16, p <.01). Social support was protective in its correlation with lower levels of PTS (beta = −0.12, p <.01) and higher levels of PTG (beta = 0.22, p <.01). Barriers to care were associated with increased PTS (beta = 0.23, p <.01), but unrelated to PTG (beta =.01, p =.855). Negative parenting showed a significant, but small, correlation with more severe PTS (beta = 0.11, p <.05), and was unrelated to PTG (beta = −0.09, p =.065). Conclusions: Our study increases the understanding of posttraumatic reactions in parents, predominantly mothers, of children with IDD and identified parenting-related trauma, social support, and barriers to mental health care as predictive factors of the reactions. More research is needed to confirm and validate the effects of the discussed factors. Although causation can not be inferred, prompt and adequate screening and therapeutic resources should be provided to those mothers who were exposed to multiple stressful caregiving events and had limited healthcare access and less support from their spouses, peers, and caregiving partners. HIGHLIGHTS: Parents of a child with Intellectual and Developmental Disorders with parenting trauma had higher posttraumatic stress (PTS) and posttraumatic growth (PTG). Social support was related to lower PTS and higher PTG. Barriers to care were related to higher PTS but unrelated to PTG.
| Translated title of the contribution | Risk and protective factors for posttraumatic stress and posttraumatic growth in parents of children with intellectual and developmental disorders |
|---|---|
| Original language | Spanish |
| Article number | 2087979 |
| Journal | European Journal of Psychotraumatology |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and Child-Bright Network (SCA-145104) and the IWK Health Centre (to EK and PM). Ting Xiong was supported by CHILD-BRIGHT Summer Studentship Program. Dr. Stewart was supported through a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Addictions and Mental Health from Canadian Institutes for Health Research. We thank our research team, especially Michelle Chisholm, Maria McGrath, Michael Nash, and Karen Turner. We are grateful for our research collaborators, especially Anselm Crombach, Lucy Lach, Janine Olthuis, and Maggie Schauer. We also thank all parent partners of this study: Angela McNair, Christine Kluczynski, David Bell, Hannah McGee, Jaime Lougheed-Winkler, Jeanine Lebsack, Kim Crowder, Kristine Russell, Rachel Martens, Sheila Kathleen Jennings, and Theresa Nguyen.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- Psychiatry and Mental health
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
