To Study the Relationship between Level of Stress and Coping Strategies among Parents of Mentally Retarded and Autistic Children

Background: Stress generally refers to two things: the psychological perception of pressure, on the one hand, and the body’s response to it, on the other, which involves multiple systems, from metabolism to muscles to memory. Through hormonal signaling, the perception of danger sets off an automatic response system, known as the fight-or-flight response, that prepares all animals to meet a challenge or flee from it. A stressful event —whether an external phenomenon like the sudden appearance of a snake on your path or an internal event like fear of losing your job when the boss yells at you—triggers a cascade of hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, that surge through the body, speeding heartbeat and the circulation of blood, mobilizing fat and sugar for fast energy, focusing attention, preparing muscles for action, and more. It generally takes some time for the body to calm down after the stress response has been triggered. Syle (1975) According to the World Health Organization (1994), approximately 156 million people or 3 percent of the world’s population have mental retardation. Coping has been defined as problem solving efforts made by an individual when the demands of a given situation tax adaptive resources (Lazarus et al., 1974; Pearlin & Schooler, 1978).  Objective: To Study the relationship between level of stress and coping strategies among parents of mentally retarded and autistic children. Methodology: A sample of 70 parents i.e. 35 parents of mentally retarded children (18 fathers and 17 mothers ) and 35 parents of autistic children  were taken from different institutions of Raipur (SAMWEDNA , ASHA DEEP & KOPALWANI ) and Chandigarh (PRYAAS) who were fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria were   selected for the present study. The tools used for assessing the variables are Socio Demographic Data Sheet (Self made), The Cope Scale (Carver et al., 1989) and Parental stress scale (Berry and Jones, 1995). Result: This study revealed that correlation between coping and parental stress in which significantly negative correlation was found in acceptance and turning to religion with parental stress.