Psychological Adaptation and Adjustment of Mothers of Children With Congenital Heart Disease: Stress, Coping, and Family Functioning

Objective: Investigate support for the transactional stressand coping model for mothers of children with congenital heartdefects, in accounting for the variance in maternal adjustment. Methods: Participants were 52 mothers of children recruitedfrom a university medical center. Measures included illnessvariables, cognitive processes (i.e., appraisals of stress,expectations, methods of coping, family functioning, and maternalpsychological adjustment). Results: Maternal adjustment was associated with high levelsof daily stress and palliative coping techniques and was notsignificantly associated with severity of the cardiac defect.Together, the variables of the model accounted for approximately38% of the variance in maternal adjustment. Conclusions: The findings are in accord with previous researchamong other chronically ill populations in suggesting an associationbetween stress, coping, and maternal adjustment. Within thelimitations of the study, the data were interpreted to supportthe utility of theoretical models in identifying areas in needof intervention across chronic illness groups.