Depression Level of Mothers having Children with Disability with Special Reference to Kashmir

The child's disability stresses the mother the most and this stress shows itself in the form of depression which in turn effect the mothers. The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the depression level of mothers having a child with disability.A sample of 80 mothers having children with disability were selected. Out of these 40 were working and 40 were non-working, belonging to nuclear and joint families. The tool used for the study was Standardized Beck Depression Inventory. The results of the study indicated that the mean depression score for working mothers having disabled children is 25.45, for non-working mothers 18.30, mothers with a disabled child from nuclear families 24.70 for mothers with a disabled child from joint family (19.2), mothers with a disabled daughter (20.4), and mothers with a disabled son (18.8). Overall the results indicate that depression level is higher among mothers with a disabled daughter belonging to nuclear families. The findings of the present study indicate that overall the working mothers with a disabled child belonging to nuclear families are more depressed than their counterparts.