ABSTRACT
Single mothers who care for a child with a chronic health condition face this caregiver role alone and are forced to balance multiple role demands without the additional support of a significant other. Both resilience and social support may enable these women to manage health problems so that individual and family development is enhanced rather than curtailed. The purpose of this study was to test hypotheses derived from the Developmental Health Model (DHM) by examining the relationships among mothers' resilience, mothers' social support and health work of single-parent families living with a child with a chronic health problem.
A secondary analysis was conducted using data provided by 77 families who were part of a larger study testing relationships among varibles in the Developmental Health Model in single-parent families with school-aged children (Ford-Gilboe, 1998). Mothers level of resilience was measured using the Resilience Scale (Wagnild & Young, 1993); the Personal Resource Questionnaire Part II (Brandt & Weinert, 1981) was used to measure mothers' perceived social support; and the Health Options Scale (Ford-Gilboe, 1997) was used to measure family participation in health work. A demographic Questionnaire was also completed.
Consistent with theoretical expectations, moderate correlations were found between mothers' resilience and health work (r =.44) and mothers' perceived social support and health work (r = .39). Taken together, resilience and social support explained 17% of the variance in health work. Further analysis revealed age at which mothers became single-parents and employment status accounted for an additional 17% of explained variance. Few demographic variables were related to resilience, social support or health work.
This study adds further support for the validity of the DHM by substantiating the influence of dimensions of health potential (mothers' resilience and mothers' perceived social support) and health work in single-parent families caring for a child with a chronic illness. Study findings provide direction for future theory refinement and for development and implementation of nursing interventions that may enhance potential for single-mothers caring for a child with a chronic health problem.
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