The East Asian Archives of Psychiatry can be viewed at: http://easap.asia/journal_file/EASAP-Suppl-2012.pdfPoster session D: Child and Adolescent Mental Health ProblemsConference Theme: Mental Health for AllBackground: Stresses have consistently been found to be
higher in parents of people with learning disabilities (LD).
However, some parents are able to be more resilient and
better adapted in the face of these challenges. It is known
that volunteering experience is able to increase one’s
resilient protector factors. This study was an initial attempt
to evaluate how a structured volunteering programme
enhances the resilience level of parents of people with LD.
The programme lasted for 6 months and the parent volunteers
paid home visits regularly to elderly who were living alone
and were invited to attend the debriefing sessions after every
visit.
Objectives: The researchers examined the effectiveness of
the structured volunteering programme in enhancing the
resilience level of parents of people with LD, and to identify
the specific resilience domains that are correlating with the
programme.
Methods: A pretest-posttest design was adopted, with
the intervention of a 6-month structured volunteering
programme. The researchers developed a 24-item scale
which extracted from the Resilience Scale – Chinese Version
(Chen, 2007; the original scale was developed by Friborg et
al. in 2006) and the Purpose in Life Test – Chinese Version
(Song, 1992; the original test was developed by Crumbaugh
& Maholic in 1964). The scale achieved good reliability (α
= 0.935). Data on 36 participants’ measures of 4 resilience
domains, namely, self-competence, social skills, social
resources, and meaning of life, were analysed.
Results: Statistically significant positive changes in the
resilience domains of social resources (p = 0.05) and
meaning of life (p = 0.04) were found, the domain of social
skills also showed positive change.
Conclusion: The results suggest the effectiveness of the
structured volunteering programme for parents of LD in
resilience enhancement. The programme design would be
discussed.published_or_final_versio
