Abstract
Parents of children with disabilities face more significant economic, psychological, and social pressure, which may impact their subjective well-being (SWB). Conversely, parents’ SWB also contributes to the children’s physical and mental development. However, parents of children with disabilities are a less studied population, and their SWB needs further attention. In this study, we recruited 616 parents of children with disabilities. We used the Family Closeness and Adaptation Scale, Simple Coping Style Questionnaire, Psychological Resistivity Scale, and Subjective Well-being Scale to investigate the influencing mechanism of family adaptability and cohesion on SWB. Structural equation models were built to explore the relationships between variables. Our findings indicate that the family adaptability and cohesion of parents of children with disabilities positively predict SWB, active coping style and resilience partially mediate the relationship between family adaptability and cohesion and SWB, and family adaptability and cohesion indirectly and positively predicated SWB through the chain mediation of resilience and active coping.
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The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank all participants of this study and the schools and hospitals that helped us collect data, such as Xi’an Mangya School, Xi’an; Xi’an Qizhi School, Xi’an; Shaanxi Kangfu Hospital, Xi’an; Baoji Special Education School, Baoji; Xi’an Children’s Hospital, Xi’an; Ankang Sunshine School, Ankang; Special Education School of Wugong country, Xianyang; Xi’an Di’er Longya School, Xi’an; Special Education School of Chang’an District, Xi’an; Baoji Children’s Hospital, Baoji. We also thank the Special Education School of Jingbian country, Yulin, and Special Education School of Mei country, Baoji, for their assistance in the design phase of this study.
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This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (grant number: 20BRK038), the Humanities and Social Sciences Fund of the Ministry of Education in China (grant number: 20YJA890019), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China (grant number: 2019TS044).
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All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Minjie Ma, Ruiying Gao, and Qianqian Wang. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Minjie Ma and Ruiying Gao. Commentary on the revised manuscript and language polish were carried out by Mingxuan Qi. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Ma, M., Gao, R., Wang, Q. et al. Family adaptability and cohesion and the subjective well-being of parents of children with disabilities: the mediating role of coping style and resilience. Curr Psychol 42, 19065–19075 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03094-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03094-y