Parenting and Future Anxiety: The Impact of Having a Child with Developmental Disabilities.

Trinidad García,Débora Areces,Celestino Rodríguez,Anna Bujnowska,Nigel Marsh

doi:10.3390/ijerph16040668

Abstract

This study examined differences in future anxiety (FA) among mothers and fathers of children with and without developmental disabilities (DD), and it also analyzed differences in FA within the group of parents of children with DD taking into consideration parent-related factors and child-related factors. A group of 167 parents of children with DD were compared to a group of 103 parents of children with typical development. The group with DD included children with autism spectrum disorders, sensory disorders, and intellectual disability. Parents completed the Future Anxiety Scale-FAS1. Mothers of children with DD had a higher general level of FA than fathers of children with and without DD. Mothers of children with DD reported higher anxiety about their future health and the meaning of their future life than fathers of children with DD. For parents of children with DD, those with lower education, male children, and older children reported higher FA. The group at risk of highest general FA are mothers of children with DD, especially those without a professional career. Similarly, parents of teenagers and/or sons with DD are at increased risk of FA.

Highlights

Two kinds of attitudes may be adopted as a result of thinking about the future: positive or negative
The results confirmed that differences exist between the intensity of general future anxiety (FA) with mothers raising a child with developmental disabilities (DD) reporting higher average levels than either fathers raising children with DD or fathers raising children with typical development (TD)
Previous research indicates that mothers and fathers, in particular mothers, raising children with different types of disability are characterized by a higher sense of anxiety, face health problems, or have greater pessimism [6,8,9,10,14,29,41,42] compared to parents of children without DD

Summary

Introduction

Two kinds of attitudes may be adopted as a result of thinking about the future: positive or negative. The feelings tied closest with thinking about the future are hope and anxiety. They are interconnected and their intensity may vary. The motivational model of hope and fear offered by Zaleski [2,3] concludes that a cognitive representation of future events as positive raises hope, which in turn makes the individual focus on activities leading to the completion of a goal. The negative attitude, on the other hand, results in fear of the future, which may appear long before the event occurs [2]. The fear experienced is overt and conscious, and it is caused not by the actual events, but by cognitive representations of the future. Lack of certainty about the future is related entirely to the individual’s expectations, hopes, and unpredictability of events [1]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion