Psychiatric morbidity and family burden among parents of disabled children

Twenty parents of mentally retarded children and 20 parents of children with neurological impairments were interviewed to determine their levels of psychiatric symptoms and of subjective and objective burden associated with care for their disabled child. The parents of disabled children had significantly higher levels of psychiatric symptoms and were more likely to meet criteria for depressive disorders, compared with a matched control group of parents of children without disabilities. The two groups of parents of disabled children reported considerable subjective and objective burden, although there were no differences between those groups in the level of burden.