TO STUDY THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE GENERAL HEALTH, WELLBEING (SWLS) AND TYPES OF STRESSORS, SOCIAL SUPPORT, COPING STRATEGIES AMONG PARENTS OF MR, CPAND HEALTHY CHILDREN

Background: Parenting a disabled child is a busy, demanding job that can cause some parents to become maladjusted. Parental stress is mostly caused by the existence, care, and raising of a mentally handicapped child in the family, which poses a risk to the parents' mental health. Objective: To examine and compare the family stress, social support, coping strategies and general health and well-being (SWLS) of mothers and fathers of MR, CP and healthy children. Materials and Method: From the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy and Handicapped Children, Varanasi, 300 parents of children with mental retardation, cerebral palsy (CP), and normal healthy children were chosen. Only parents of children between the ages of 0 and 18 were allowed to participate in this study. These parents gave their consent after we informed them about the typed questionnaires. Result: The result of the study shows that with increasing the level of family stress, the subjective well-being of individual is decreased and the general mental health of individual is also impaired. With increasing the social support, family stress of the individual decreases, general mental health of individual improves and the subjective well-being of an individual also improves.With increase in coping, the subjective well-being of an individual improves and general mental health of individual also improves. Conclusion: This study will be useful for managing the responsibility of raising disabled children on a national basis, and comprehensive support services for mothers must be offered in order to preserve their psychological and physical health.