MADISON, Wis., Feb 17, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Raising a child with a
disability causes more daily stress and long-range health problems than
parenting a child without disabilities, U.S. researchers say.
Stress and health ills were greater among parents of disabled children, U.S.
researchers found.
The study, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found parents
who had children with disabilities -- that included attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder -- reported having at least one
stressor on 50 percent of the study days compared with 40 percent among other
parents.
The parents of disabled children also had a greater number of stressors and a
greater number of physical health problems.
When researchers evaluated saliva samples from the parents to measure the
changing patterns of a biological marker linked to stress -- cortisol -- they
found parents of children with disabilities showed patterns of chronic stress
much higher than normal on days when the parents spent more time with their
children.
"Our findings indicate the magnitude of the additional daily stress that these
families face," lead study author Marsha Mailick Seltzer of the University of
Wisconsin in Madison said in a statement.
Researchers used data including telephone interviews from the Midlife in the
United States study, for 82 parents -- average age 57 years -- of children with
disabilities and for a similar group of parents of children without
disabilities.
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Copyright 2009 by United Press International