Parent’s attitude towards their mentally retarded children: A descriptive, cross-sectional, comparative and analytical studyParent’s attitude towards their mentally retarded children: A descriptive, cross-sectional, comparative and analytical study

Abstract

Parents attitudes toward their mentally retarded children are of paramount importance, because majority of such children are looked after at their home and parental attitude determines the efficiency and adequacy of the training measures to be adopted by the parents. Attitudes are determined by social influences, cognitive influences, behavioral influences etc. These influences jointly mold our earliest attitudes, and they can change our attitudes through our lives. Attitude strongly affect how a person perceive and respond to other people including their mentally retarded children. Unrealistic and self-defeating attitudes lead on to distort family interactions which greatly hampers. A descriptive cross-sectional and analytical study was done in Department of Psychiatry, Cumilla Medical College, Cumilla. All cases were selected from patients attending at Cumilla Medical College Hospital and Private Mental Health Facilities in Cumilla City from April 2014 to September 2017. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the attitudes of parents towards their mentally retarded children. Total 80 participants who fulfilled the enrolment criteria were included in the study. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for IQ assessment children (WISC-III) and Independent Adaptive Behavior Assessments Scale (IBAS) were used for diagnosing regarding mentally retarded children. A structural Likert-type Scale was used to assess the attitudes from the Parental Attitude Research Instrument (PARI) adapted by Schaefer & Bell, (1958), Thurstone (1959) and Parekh (1988). Respondents provided sociodemographic information. The findings of this study revealed that most of the parents had relatively positive attitudes towards their mentally retarded children. Among the participants 42.50% of the mothers and 36.25% of the fathers in the present study expressed a positive attitude towards their mentally retarded children considering the total categorical score. Only 2.5% parents expressed a very negative attitude towards their mentally retarded children which was reflected by disappointment. In the light of these findings further research areas is recommended with the aim of using such information to build appropriate and successful rehabilitation and intervention programs for mentally retarded children and their parents.