The Determination of the Needs of the Families with a Mentally Handicapped Child According to Their Mood

Abstract

Numerous domain experts who provide service to disabled individuals have focused on only disabled children for many years and the family has not generally dwelled on during this time. But today, it is more clearly seen that meeting the needs of family means meeting the needs of the child. The families may reveal different sensual reactions according to their children's special condition. In case it is known whether these sensual reactions affect their requirement areas and the intensity of their needs, the quality of the given assistance can be increased. This research was made to determine which requirement areas are affected by the mood of parents with a mentally handicapped child attending special education and rehabilitation centers and the level of it. The population of this research consists of the families whose mentally handicapped children attend special education and rehabilitation centers inside the Samsun provincial border in 2011-2012. The families of 443 mentally handicapped children who attend 14 special education and rehabilitation centers in Samsun city center, Carsamba and Bafra districts were chosen via simple random sampling technique. In this research, Family Needs Assesment Survey (FNAS), which was developed by Bailey and Simeonsson, adapted into Turkish by Sucuoglu, revised by Cavkaytar and friends, was used as the data collection tool. FNAS and the personal information form which was developed by the researcher were applied to the families of 443 mentally handicapped children who attend special education and rehabilitation centers. The average points of the parents they got from four subscales differ according to their mood.