Analysis and correlation of social support and of parental satisfaction of families of children with Down syndrome

Abstract

The family is the child's first social environment and a basis for his development. Families of children with disabilities have necessaries arising from the demands and characteristics of the disability itself. Knowing these families makes it possible to create programs to help them. Thus, the objectives of the research were: (a) to identify and analyze parental satisfaction and social support for families of children with Down syndrome and (b) to report parental satisfaction and social support with the sociodemographic data of the families. Fifteen guardians of children with Down syndrome participated in the research The questionnaires used were: Questionnaire Criterion Brazil, Questionnaire of social support and Questionnaire of parental satisfaction. The data captured was quantitative. To correlate the variables, Spearman's correlation test was used. The results indicated that parents were happy to be with their disabled child, since the items that obtained the highest parental satisfaction averages were related to the situations that valued these moments. Regarding social support, a supportive person most mentioned was the spouse. Regarding the correlation between variables, the age of the participants presented a positive correlation with the degree of satisfaction in being a father and mother and with the social support induced in moments that needed emotional help. Some items on the Social Support scale were also positively correlated with items on the Parental Satisfaction Scale. It is concluded that, as parents get older, social support and parental satisfaction increase and that these variables are correlated with each other.