Parents Reactions Toward the Maladaptive Problems of their Mentally Disabled Children

The study aimed to identify parents reactions toward the maladaptive problems of their mentally disabled children. Design: A descriptive exploratory design was utilized in this study. Setting: Psychiatric Out-Patient clinics, Pediatric hospital at Cairo University. Sample: A purposeful sample of 100 parents having mentally disabled children and their children who are attending at the Psychiatric Out-Patient clinics, Pediatric Hospital at Cairo University. Tools for Data Collection: Socio-demographic data of parents as age, level of education, occupation and family income. Socio-demographic data of children as age, sex, birth order, level of child education, IQ level and degree of disability. Questions about the effects of child disability on the parents, parent reactions, interaction toward their child s needs. Findings: Two-thirds of the sample (69%) felt sad when they discovered the child s disability, while 86% of them, their current feelings changed to acceptance and for 14% it changed to rejection. The main reason for acceptance was believing in destiny (70.9%), while the main reason for rejection was lack of acceptance by society followed by severity of disability (64.3% and 42.9% respectively). Conclusion: There was a highly significant relation be-tween present acceptance of child disability and problems related to child disability (X=8.40, p 0.001). Recommendation, providing parents educational programs regularly, which help in dealing with child accurately and prevent or manage be-havioral problems.