Maternal self-efficacy and family adjustment in households with children with serious disability

Abstract

Self-efficacy – the belief in one’s capability to cope with life’s challenges and achieve goals – is an important service objective in family centered practice with parents of children with disability. Yet, limited attention has been given to parental self-efficacy and overall adjustment of families of children with a disability in the research literature. This study explores maternal general self-efficacy as a cognitive coping resource in these families. We employed longitudinal tracking over a 1-year period to examine maternal general self-efficacy as a predictor of family adjustment in households with children with serious disability. A computer assisted telephone survey gathered psychological, family, and demographic information from 154 mothers in AB, Canada. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that even when controlling for family adjustment at time 1, as well as mother’s age and parenting stress at time 2, general self-efficacy made an independent contribution to predicting family adjustment at time 2.