Stress and Social Networks in Families with Older Institutionalized Retarded Children

Abstract

Parental stress and social network size, density, and boundary density were examined in 41 families with adolescent and young adult severely and profoundly retarded institutionalized children during weekend home visits. The comparison group was 37 matched families with children with no physical or mental disabilities. Significant group differences for both mothers and fathers were found in multivariate analyses. Specifically, scores on a general measure of stress were not different for the groups, although parents of retarded children exhibited high levels of stress specific to the demands of their child's disability. Contrary to expectation, families of retarded children did not have smaller networks than comparison families, but did have well-developed networks of professionals. Consistent with previous research on network density with this population, higher density networks were seen in the families with retarded offspring, as were indications of higher levels of inter- and intranetwork boundary density.