An investigation of the relationship between parental self-efficacy and marital adjustment levels of parents of disabled individuals: Parents of disabled individuals

Abstract

As a primary goal, the aim of this study is to examine the parental self-efficacy and marital adjustment levels of the parents of disabled individuals in terms of various variables and to examine the relationship between parental self-efficacy and marital adjustment, as well. Correlational survey model was used in the research. The participants of the study are parents of disabled children attending Special Education and Rehabilitation Centers (SERC) in Edirne, Tekirdag and Istanbul in the 2019-2020 academic year. In order to collect the data of this research, the parental self-efficacy scale, developed by Guimond, Moore, Aier, Maxon & Diken (2005) and adapted to Turkish by Aksoy & Diken (2007), whose reliability study was carried out by Cavkaytar, Aksoy & Ardıc (2014) was used. Besides, the Marriage Adjustment Scale (MAS), which was developed by Locke & Wallace (1959) and adapted to Turkish by Tutarel Kıslak (1999), was also used According to the results of the research, the self-efficacy levels of the parents were found to be average; and in terms of gender variable, no significant difference was observed from the male parents considering age, monthly income level, education level and the type of disability variable of the child. In addition, marital adjustment levels of the parents were detected to be low. There was a significant difference in marital adjustment levels in favor of male parents, in favor of parents with a low-income level, and in favor of secondary school graduate parents in the educational level variable. No significant difference was observed in terms of age and the child's disability type variable. According to the results of this study, a positive relationship was observed between self-efficacy and marital adjustment