This study aims to verify each mediated effect of marital support, marital conflict, and self-efficacy between parenting stress and marital satisfaction of parents of children with disabilities and to describe each actor and partner effect of mothers and fathers by Actor-Partner Interdependent Model mediation Model (APIMeM).
For the purpose of this study, a questionnaire on parenting stress, marital satisfaction, marital support, marital conflict, and self-efficacy was conducted with 255 parents of children with disabilities in Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Gwangju, Daejeon, Ulsan, Gyeonggi, Gangwon, Chungbuk, Chungnam, Jeonbuk, Jeonnam, Gyeongbuk, Jeju, and Sejong.
Using collected data, correlation analysis was implemented in order to investigate the relationships of major variables by exploiting SPSS 21.0. Each actor and partner effect of mothers and fathers was identified by examining APIMeM with AMOS 21.0 and the significance of indirect effects was verified by bootstrapping method of Mplus 7.0.
The findings of this study are the following; First, parenting stress of parents of children with disabilities was high for mothers and the level of marital satisfaction was high for fathers. The level of parenting stress of fathers was higher when the age of their children was over 20 than when under 13. It showed that personal assistance service for the disabled (PSA) was significant in the parenting stress of mothers. The higher monthly income of the family was, the higher the level of marital support and marital satisfaction for mothers was. On the contrary, the lower monthly income of the family was, the higher that of parenting stress and marital conflict for mothers.
Second, each mediated effect of marital support, marital conflict, and self-efficacy between parenting stress and marital satisfaction of parents of children with disabilities was significant on each parent’s actor-actor simple indirect effect by using APIMeM. Marital support of fathers influenced on marital satisfaction of mothers and parenting stress of fathers did so on mothers’ self-efficacy in terms with partner effect.
Third, actor effect of parenting stress on marital satisfaction was significant for both parents in the mediation of marital support and self-efficacy, while that of parenting stress on marital satisfaction was significant only for fathers in the mediation of marital conflict. The partner effect of the two was not significant.
Fourth, the level of actor effect was higher than that of partner effect in comparison of actor and partner effect of parenting stress, marital support, marital conflict, and self-efficacy on marital satisfaction. These findings could show that marital support, marital conflict, and self-efficacy were mediated, one parent was influenced by the other as well as the very self, and the level of actor effect was much higher than that of partner in the effect of parenting stress of parents with disabled children on marital satisfaction.
In conclusion, might be the first step to develop pair-study of parents with disabled children and a finding of the influence of father’s marital support and parenting stress on mother’s marital satisfaction and self-efficacy might be used as the first move in the practice of education and counseling for the parents with disabled children.
Finally, a discussion on implications and limitations of this study with regard to the counseling and programs for parents with disabled children was included.