Pathological Defense Mechanisms of Parents of Deaf Children and Children with Intellectual Disabilities: A Search for Corrective Solutions

Due to the growing importance of the defense mechanisms in conceptualizations of mental disorders and their treatments, this study aims to investigate pathological defense mechanisms of parents of children with intellectual disability and deaf children in Fars province in search of solutions.
This is the causal-comparative survey. The population of study was all parents of children with intellectual disability and deaf children under the auspices of Rehabilitation and Welfare centers in 2015 in Kazeroon-Iran. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 30 parents of children with intellectual disability, who were diagnosed to be trainable or educable. The sample also included 30 parents of deaf children who were matched with the participants in control group for age, education level and gender of children. The research instruments were the Structured Clinical Interview and Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ) developed by Andrzv and colleagues. Two-factor analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the data.
The results showed significant gender-related difference between the mean scores of parents of deaf children and those with intellectual disability on mature, immature and neurotic defense mechanisms (p≤0.001). In other words, mothers of deaf children and those of intellectual disability use mature defense mechanisms more than fathers of such children. No gender-related difference between was found between the studied groups in terms of immature and neurotic defense mechanisms.
It is concluded that the identification of defense mechanisms of the parents of deaf children and those with intellectual disability could help design and implement effective intervention programs.