Level of Social Support and Perceived Stress among the Parents of Mentally Challenged Children

Every child is special for their parents. But, some children have special needs that challenge parents to find ways to prepare these children for the future and to handle the problems. Families having mental retarded children often face challenges because of the special demands placed upon them. Having a mentally challenged child is an unexpected stressful event and it affects the whole family. There is a connection between the social support and the perceived stress. To find out the relation between social support and the perceived stress, the present study aims to analyze the level of social support and perceived stress of the parents of Mentally Challenged Children. To meet the framed objectives, samples of 60 parents of mentally challenged children belonging to age group 5-15 years were randomly selected. The Multi Dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support and the Perceived Stress Scale were administered on the subjects. Findings suggested that, there is a significant negative correlation between the social support and the perceived stress of the parents of mentally challenged children.