Parenting stress among mentally retarded children with normal control

Background: Parents having a child with mental retardation experience a variety of stressors to the child’s disability and are known to get impacted in many ways because of having a special child. Parents of mentally retarded children are always feeling sad at various stages of life and experiencing other emotional reactions. The cause of mental retardation is a pathological process in the brain, and characterised by restrictions in adaptive and intellectual functions. Objective: To assess the parenting stress among parents of children with mental retardation and parents of children with normal control. Methods: The sample consisted of 80 parents (40 parents of children with mental retardation and 40 parents of children with normal controls) selected from the outpatient department (OPD) of Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry & Allied Sciences (RINPAS), Ranchi and two nearby areas (Kanke and Sukurhuttu) of RINPAS by using purposive sampling technique. Result: Finding of this study indicated that parents of children with mental retardation were having high level of parenting stress as compared to parents of children with normal controls.