Mental and Physical Health of Parents of Children With Special Needs

Znanstvene spoznaje upućuju da je roditeljima djece s posebnim potrebama, kao primarnim skrbnicima, ugroženo mentalno i fizičko zdravlje. Glavni cilj ovoga rada bio je analizirati spoznaje o mentalnom i fizičkom zdravlju roditelja djece s posebnim potrebama te dati kraći prikaz programa podrške u sustavu zdravstva, odgoja i obrazovanja, socijalne skrbi te interventnih programa pružanja podrške koji dokazano kvalitetno podržavaju zdravlje roditelja djece s posebnim potrebama. Metoda realizacije cilja biti će pregled relevantnih recentnih istraživanja na dostupnim znanstvenim bazama podataka putem tražilica na internetu (Hrčak, Science Direct, ERIC, Google znalac i dr). Rezultati istraživanja ovoga rada ukazuju na to da roditeljima može biti ozbiljno ugroženo njihovo mentalno i fizičko zdravlje, ukoliko je u obiteljima prisutno dijete s posebnom potrebom, a to se ponajviše očituje u segmentima više razine stresa, smanjene razine dobrobiti, kao i kvalitete života te bračne prilagodbe. Stoga su od neizostavne važnosti različiti programi podrške za roditelje djece s posebnim potrebama koji, ukoliko se adekvatno provode, mogu imati veliki utjecaj na mentalno i fizičko zdravlje roditelja. Spoznaje na ovom području mogu biti važan doprinos za rani i predškolski odgoj i obrazovanje te prihvaćanje i uvažavanje različitih individualnih karakteristika i potreba svakog djeteta, ali isto tako i za pružanje kvalitetne podrške roditeljima djece s posebnim potrebama. Također, rezultati istraživanja ovoga rada i spoznaje mogu dati veliki doprinos daljnjem istraživanju ove tematike, ali i svim budućim istraživanjima iz ovog područja.Scientific findings suggest that parents of children with special needs, as primary caregivers, are at risk of mental and physical health. The main goal of this paper was to analyze the knowledge about mental and physical health of parents of children with special needs and give a brief overview of support programs in health care, education, social welfare and intervention programs that support proven health support of parents of children with special needs. The method of achieving the goal will be to review relevant recent research on available scientific databases via search engines on the Internet (Hrčak, Science Direct, ERIC, Google Scholar, etc). The results of the research of this paper indicate that parents can be seriously endangered by their mental and physical health, if there is a child with special needs in the family, and this is mostly manifested in the segments of higher stress levels, reduced well-being, quality of life and marital adjustments. Therefore, various support programs for parents of children with special needs are of paramount importance, which, if adequately implemented, can have a major impact on the mental and physical health of parents. Knowledge in this area can be an important contribution to early and preschool education and acceptance and respect for different individual characteristics and needs of each child, but also providing quality support to parents of children. Also, the results of research of this paper and knowledge can make a great contribution to further research on this topic, but also to all future research in this field