Maternal Parenting Stress and Sense of Competence in Children with Seizure Disorders

Park, Subin; Yoo, Hanik K; Jeon, Jeongwon; Choi, Soon Ho; Wang, Hee Ryung; Kim, Kunwoo; Kim, Jin Yong; Ko, Tae Sung

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
While parents who foster children with epilepsy would have considerable parenting difficulties, the parenting stress and sense of competence have not been investigated. We investigated maternal parenting stress, parenting satisfaction and sense of parenting competence in children with seizure disorders, and the associations with seizure-related variables.
METHODS
Mothers of 79 children with seizure disorders (41 boys, 38 girls; mean age, 9.9+/-2.3 years) and 79 healthy comparison subjects matched for age and sex were recruited for this study. The Korean version of the Parenting Stress Index (K-PSI-SF) and the Parenting Sense of Competence (K-PSOC) were used to assess parenting stress, parenting satisfaction and parenting efficacy.
RESULTS
Mothers of children with seizure disorders showed higher scores on stress related to difficult child and child learning and parenting anxiety compared to mothers of healthy children. In addition, scores on stress related to parental-child interaction and child learning were significantly associated with parental economic status. Scores on stress from parental-child interaction was also correlated with seizure severity, and stress from child learning was correlated with seizure type. Sense of parenting competence and anxiety scores were correlated with paternal educational status, respectively.
CONCLUSION
These findings suggest that mothers of children with epilepsy have greater parenting stress and anxiety and social and seizure-associated factors may affect the parenting stress and anxiety.