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Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, Vol. I , 57-70 (1991)
Stress and Coping in Mothers Caring for a Child with
Severe Learning Difficulties: A Test of Lazarus’
Transactional Model of Coping
LYN QUINE*
Institute of Social and Applied Psychology University of Kent at Canterbury CT2 7LZ, UK
JAN PAHL
National Institute of Social Work Tuvistock Pluce, London
ABSTRACT
The literature on psychological stress among women consistently points to the adverse effects
of child rearing on mothers, particularly those caring for children with physical or mental
handicaps. Early studies of the effects on family functioning of caring for a child with severe
learning difficulties adopted a pathological approach in which it was assumed that psychological
distress was inevitable among family members, particularly mothers. Recent research has
emphasised that many families cope with and adapt to the stress they experience, and seeks
to discover how they do so.
The paper reports on a study of 166 mothers caring for a child with severe learning difficulties.
The aim of the study was to investigate both the factors associated with maternal stress
and those which might mediate or buffer the effects of stress. The study used the Folkman
and Lazarus’ (1979) transactional model of stress. Stress is the condition that results when
persodenvironment transactions lead the individual to perceive a discrepancy between the
demands of a situation and hisher resources or ability to cope with those demands. The
nature and type of coping generated by a person will be determined by the coping resources
in the person’s environment. The model identifies five categories of coping resource: utilitarian
resources, healtWmorale, social networks, general and specific beliefs, and problem solving
skills. In our study, the five coping resources were represented by the mother’s social class
and appraisal of her financial worries, physical health, social support, acceptance of and
adjustment to the child, and assessment of coping skills. Stress was measured by the Malaise
Inventory (Rutter, 1970).
Four of the five coping resources were found to be significant contributors in a hierarchical
regression analysis of stress scores, contributing additional variance beyond that of behavioural
and other child characteristics. Altogether, 55% of the variance in stress scores was explained.
Key wordr: Stress, coping, severe learning difficulties, families.
XNTRODUCTION
In recent years a growing number of studies have examined the effect on family
* Lyn Quine is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Social and Applied Psychology, University
of Kent at Canterbury. Reprint requests to Lyii Quine please. Jan Pahl is Director of Research at the
National Institute of Social Work, Tavistock Place, London.
1052-928419 110 10057-14$07.00
0 1991 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received I1 February 1991
Accepted 26 February 1991