Stress, appraisal, and coping in mothers of disabled and nondisabled children

The cognitive-behavioral model of stress and coping provided the framework for this study of mothers of physically disabled children (n = 69) and mothers of nondisabled children (n = 63). The first aim was to test for differences between groups in responses to stressful parenting events. As hypothesized, mothers of disabled children reported higher levels of depressive symptomatology. Dif-ferences in psychological distress and health status approached significance. The second aim was to explore the mediating influences of coping strategies and cognitive appraisals. As predicted, emotion-focused coping was related to in-creased psychological distress in mothers of disabled children whereas problem-focused coping was associated with decreased distress. Both relationships were significant even after controlling for differences in type of parenting stressor. Hierarchical regressions showed that 58 and 25 % of the variance in psychologi-cal distress was explained by the independent variables; however, the predictors were different for the two groups of mothers. Factors that may explain the •This article is based on the first author's doctoral dissertation, completed at Columbia University, Teachers College under the direction of Roger A. Myers. Portions of these data were presented at the 100th annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC. The study wa