Investigation and comparison of the mental wellbeing, coping styles ‎and Perceived Social Support in Parents having exceptional and ‎normal children

The purpose of this study was to compare the mental wellbeing, Coping Styles and perceived social support in parents having more than one exceptional and normal child. In the present study, which is an ex post facto research, 800 parents (400 parents having exceptional children and 400 parents having normal children) were selected by simple random sampling and multi-stage sampling. They completed Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations: Short Form (CISS-SF), multidimensional scale of the Social Support (MSPSS), and the mental wellbeing scales including the satisfaction with the life scale (SWLS) and the positive and negative affect. Data analyzed with the multivariate Analysis of Variance showed that there was a significant difference between these two groups of parents in terms of mental wellbeing. As far as the life satisfaction and positive affect are concerned, the parents having normal children got higher scores in comparison with the parents having normal children. The results also showed that there was a difference between the two groups in terms of the problem-focused and emotion-focused coping styles; no difference was seen in terms of the avoidance coping style; The results also showed that parents having exceptional children got lower grades in three dimensions of social support(family, friends and others) in comparison with the parents having normal children. According to the findings of the study, having an exceptional child, especially having more than one, would affect the psychological health of the family and the immediate relatives.