Investigating Social Support Perceptions and Resilience Levels of Parents with Children with Special Needs

This study was designed, using a relational screening model of descriptive research methods, to examine perceptions of social support and resilience of parents with children with special needs. The study group consisted of 128 mothers and 34 fathers having children with special needs. Personal Information Form, Revised Parental Social Support Scale and Family Resilience Scale were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of data, T test, ANOVA, Mann Whitney U Test, Kruskal Wallis H Test and LSD analysis were applied. The study showed that mothers were more contestatory than fathers, as parents get older, their attendance to social activities increased and they had more control over their lives. Apart from the perceived care support by parents, living in the urban or the rural area did not make any difference on their perception of social support and on their resilience. It was found that with the increase in the level of education, there was an increase with the parents’ perceived social support and satisfaction and resilience levels. The number of children with special needs of the parents made a difference in their perception of social support and care support and provided them to be more resilient. Furthermore, the gender of the child with special needs did not make any differences on the social support perception of the parents, their satisfaction with this support and their resilience level. It is amongst the results that the parents do not face any problems while talking with their relatives either face to face or through the phone, making home visits or going out for any reason.