An Exploratory Study to Assess the Perceived Stressors & Coping Strategies Adopted by Parent of Children Diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Attending Child Guidance Clinics in Mumbai

1. To identify the stressors perceived by the parents of children diagnosed with ADHD.

2. To identify the coping strategies adopted to overcome the stressors perceived by parents of children diagnosed with ADHD in the following areas:

• Physical, • Psychological, • Social, • Economical, • Spiritual, • Sexual

3. To find out the association between the perceived stressors and coping strategies adopted with selected variables such as:

• Age, •Gender of child, • Education of parent, •Socio-economic status • Type of family, • Type of delivery

In this study, an Exploratory Descriptive method and Survey design was used. It was conducted in the selected Child Guidance Clinics in Mumbai. The population was all the parents (either mother or father) of children diagnosed with ADHD in Mumbai. The samples were parents of children diagnosed with ADHD, attending Child Guidance Clinics in Mumbai and who fulfills the inclusion criteria. The sample size was 200. The sampling technique used was Non Probability Convenience Sampling. Interviewing technique was used. A semi-structured interview schedule was used for data collection.

In this study, it was found that ADHD was more prevalent in male children than female children. Also, psychological stressors were higher than any other type of stressors in the parents of children with ADHD. It was found that talking to friends/relatives was the most common adopted coping strategy towards the social stressors. This study showed that fathers with ADHD children had better coping strategies than mothers with ADHD children. Also, this study revealed that religion of the parents with ADHD children helps them in adopting adaptive or mal adaptive coping strategies.

During the study, researcher came across a number of parents of children with ADHD in the Child Guidance Clinics and found that many of the family members had various stressors due to their ADHD child. Certain parents may have adaptive coping skills whereas others may have maladaptive coping skills. It is painful to see a parent suffering from depression and in the course of time the parents may become silent sufferers of depression. Mental illness in a family can affect the whole family as a unit thus the researcher felt the need to conduct a study on the parent stressors and coping strategies.