Relationship between Sense of Stress and Posttraumatic Growth. The Effect of Parent Sex and Child Disability Type

Abstract

Raising a child with a disability is associated with both negative and positive outcomes in parents. We explored the relationship between maternal and paternal stress and posttraumatic growth (PTG) in a Polish sample of 325 parents of children identified with intellectual disability (ID) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) without ID. We found that the highest level of PTG is characteristic of mothers with children with ASD, followed by mothers with children with ID. However, a considerable proportion of fathers also experienced average or high PTG. Mothers experienced lower levels of stress than fathers. Whereas positive correlations (including the quadratic relation) between certain dimensions of stress and PTG were found in mothers, no significant correlations between the variables were indicated in fathers. The results of this study can inform recommendations to improve therapeutic activities aimed at providing them with support and strengthening transformative beneficial changes.