Family resilience elements alleviate the relationship between maternal psychological distress and the severity of children's developmental disorders.

BACKGROUND: Family resilience is the process through which family members withstand and rebound from adversity.

AIMS: In this study, we examined the effects of family resilience on the psychological distress of mothers of children with developmental disorders (DD).

METHODS AND PROCEDURES: A Family Resilience Elements Questionnaire was developed, which measured the degree to which mothers possess elements of family resilience. The participants were 274 mothers of children with DD. We performed a hierarchical multiple regression analysis to predict maternal psychological distress.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: The analysis revealed that maternal psychological distress was increased by higher severity of children's DD and decreased by higher family resiliency. Moreover, there was a significant interaction between the severity of children's DD and family resiliency, where family resiliency moderated the relationship between maternal psychological distress and the severity of children's DD. Specifically, the slope predicting maternal psychological distress based on the severity of children's DD was decreased by increasing family resiliency.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: These findings indicated that family resiliency reduced maternal psychological distress and alleviated the relationship between maternal psychological distress and severity of children's DD. Thus, we suggest that clinicians need to take account of family resilience in interventions for children with DD and their mothers.