| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 特殊教育學系 === 94 === This study adopted qualitative research method to explore the family stress coping process of adults with mental retardation. A self developed rating scale was used to recruit two couples perceiving themselves as having better adaptation while experiencing greater stresses after their sons with mental retardation got into adulthood as compared to the others from a pool of 30 families. The in-depth interviews were conducted to gain the parents and adult siblings’ perceptions and reactions to family stress related to adult family member with mental retardation. McCubbin and McCubbin’s resiliency model of family adjustment and adaptation was used as major reference to analyze the data. Several themes of family stress coping process were examined, including family stressful events, patterns of family functioning, stress appraisal, family coping resources, family coping strategies, family adaptation and family resiliency.
The results indicated that the main stressful events encountered by family members included day-care setting selection, transportation for day-care, financial burden of day-care, lacking of independent living skill, emotional problem, stereotypical behavior, health problem and future planning. These stressful events were induced to three categories of stressors. They were the stress of transition from school to adulthood, the stress caused by the previous stress coping consequence, and prior family strains accumulated over time.
In terms of the relationship between the family stressor and the pattern of family function, it revealed that the family had to reschedule their daily activities and adjust their roles and functions in order to meet the special needs of the adult family member with mental retardation. On the other hand, the pattern of family function would affect their stress appraisal and determine the degree of the needs for family resources.
It was found that the appraisal of the different stress events explicated by family members included overloading, expectation, disability, uncertainty, negative mood, avoidance or two or more of the above. Their attitudes toward the stress appraisal were associated with the personal traits and the degree of participating on care giving, and the results of the appraisal would affect the way of problem solving and stress coping.
The resources adopted by the family members were personal resources, family system resources and social support. It revealed that the family’s patterns of functioning were related to the number or amount of family resources. The coping strategies adopted by the family members were grouped into five categories: action to reduce the stress, acquiring additional resources, reframing situation and collaborating with family members. It showed if the family members’ attitude were positive and owned enough resources, they were inclined to adopt two or more coping strategies. However, the family members’ attitude were negative and owned limited resources, they were inclined to adopt single coping strategy.
The findings showed the family adaptation to facing adult family member with mental retardation was a dynamic and continuous adjusting process. The most of the family stressors were long term accumulated stressful events associated with disability itself. Over a long period of time to cope with these stressful events, the stress might be lessened, but hard to be totally removed. It meant the family had to face the accumulated family stress all along.
Additionally, the family resiliency found in this study included family cohesion, family adaptability, affective communication, attributing positive meanings to the situation, collaborating with family members and social support. Family resiliency was the family’s ability to cultivate strengths to positively meet challenges of pile-up of stress.
Finally, the implication for family of adult with mental retardation, rehabilitation counseling practitioners were discussed, the limitation of this study and the suggestion for future research direction were presented as well.
Keywords: family stress coping process, family stress, adult with mental retardation.
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