Preliminary validation of a parental adjustment measure for use with families of disabled children in rural India.

Parental adjustment is an important outcome in child disability interventions, as well as an important mediating variable for other child and family outcomes. This is just as true in developing countries using models of community-based rehabilitation. Previous experience with Western instruments indicated that an appropriate new measure was required. A questionnaire containing 34 attitude statements rated on a five point scale was administered to the mothers of 46 children with epilepsy in a treatment programme in rural West Bengal, India. Factor analysis was performed on the dataset. Mothers reported feelings of rejection, low self-esteem and guilt. Four domains were derived from the factor analysis. All these attitudes are consistent with previous indian studies on childhood disability. These preliminary findings have implications for social support and counselling intervention. Further research is necessary to validate this instrument for field studies of intervention.