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Parenting Stress and Coping Strategies in Mothers of Children Receiving Early Intervention Services

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Abstract

The relationship between coping strategies of mothers of children receiving early intervention services and parenting stress was studied. A total of 144 mothers from 17 early intervention centers located in the Valencian Community, Spain, participated of the study. Mother’s mean age was 35.6 years (SD = 4.10) and children’s mean age was 2.71 years (SD = 1.21). Mothers’ parenting stress level was measured using the Parenting Stress Index-SF (PSI-SF) and their coping strategies were evaluated using the Adult Coping Response Inventory (CRI-A). We proposed two structural equation models to predict total parenting stress and its factors in relationship to child’s and mother’s sociodemografic variables, and mediated by mother’s coping strategies. Mothers’ education level and child diagnosis had a direct impact on the three PSI-SF factors. Type of disorder and Cognitive Avoidance were positively and significantly (p  < .05) related to the Emotional Discharge coping strategy, explaining a 20.9% of the variance. On the other hand, mothers’ educational level and child’s type of disorder, directly, and coping strategies, in the form of mediator or directly, have a relationship with the dimensions of maternal stress. Both models show similar results although the second model supports the existence of a latent stress factor that is explained by the three stress factors. The authors concluded that mothers of children with especial needs could potencially benefit from early intervention programs that provide supports to help them to incorporate aproach coping styles to their coping strategies.

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Author Contributions

C.P.J.: designed and executed the study, assisted with the data analyses, and wrote the paper. G.S.L.: designed the study, interpreted results, and wrote the paper. M.R.G.: designed the study, interpreted results, and wrote the paper. M.M.C.P.: collaborated in results interpretation, in the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

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  1. Campus Capacitas and Facultad de Psicología, Magisterio y Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir, Valencia, Spain

    Joana Calero Plaza, Mª Dolores Grau Sevilla, Gabriel Martínez Rico & Catalina Patricia Morales Murillo

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  1. Joana Calero Plaza
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  2. Mª Dolores Grau Sevilla
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  3. Gabriel Martínez Rico
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  4. Catalina Patricia Morales Murillo
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Correspondence to Joana Calero Plaza.

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Conflict of Interest

Author Catalina Patricia Morales Murillo has received a graduate student assistantship from the Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir. The graduate student assistantship is named as: Ayudas propias de la escuela de doctorado de la Universidad Católica de Valencia para la contratación de personal investigador en formación de carácter predoctoral 2015-2016. The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of an institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Calero Plaza, J., Grau Sevilla, M., Martínez Rico, G. et al. Parenting Stress and Coping Strategies in Mothers of Children Receiving Early Intervention Services. J Child Fam Stud 26, 3192–3202 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0802-9

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