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Mothers of handicapped children experience many problems and difficulties related to the child’s prolonged dependency and demands for special care. Social support can be identified as stress-relieving factor, social support is considered to decrease the amount of negativeness in an individual or family. This study attempted to identify the level of burden and social support in mothers of children who are handicapped, and to determine whether social support is an effective strategy for burden relief in these mothers. The method used in the study was a correlational descriptive survey using a questionnaire. The subjects for the study were 42 mothers who have the handicapped children, between two to twelve years of age, being treated at S General Welfare House for Handicapped and S Rehabilitation Center in Seoul. The data were collected during 1 month from March 20 to April 20, 1996. The instruments used for this study was a structured questionnaire which was the Burden scale developed by Suh Mihae and Oh Kasil(1993) and the PRQ(Personal Resource Questionnaire) scale developed by Brandt & Weinert(1981). The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS computer program, yielding frequencies, percentiles, means, standard deviations, χ²-test, Pearson’s correlation coefficienct, t-test and ANOVA. The results of this study are as follows ; 1)The range of age in the subjects was 29~44 years, the range age in the handicapped children was 2~12 years. 2) The mean score of burden, for the mothers of the handicapped children was 2.75(standard deviation was 0.47) of a possible total of 5. 3) The mean score of social support, for the mothers of the handicapped children was 4.99 (standard deviation was 0.59) of a possible total of 7. 4) There was an negative correlations hip between burden level and the social support, but there was no statistically significant correlationship between burden level and the social support(r = -.2252, p = .076) 5) In the general characteristics influencing on the burden level was significantly related with the sex(t = - 2.87, p = .007) and the degree of child’s handicap level(F = 11.8680, p = .000l). In the general characteristics influencing on the social support was significantly related with the family(husband) support(F = 3.5199, p = .0240). There were significant differences in the mother’s levels of burden depending upon the severity of child’s handicap. In other words, the degree of mother’s burden was directly proportionate to the degree of child’s handicap level. There were significant differences in the mother’s levels of social support depending upon the family(husband) support. In conclusion, on the basis of the results of this study, there was no statistically significant correlationship between burden level and the social support. Above results suggest that strategies for the intervention programs in diminishing the mother’s burden and reinforcing the social support.
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