Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

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Abdi R, Narimani A. Comparison of Personality Traits and Resiliency in Mothers of Children with Autism Disorder and Attention Deficit /Hyperactivity Disorder with Normal Children’s Mothers. MEJDS 2018; 8 :70-70
URL: http://jdisabilstud.org/article-1-550-en.html

Objective: Researchers believe that there are moderating factors between parents' psychological stress and disorder of their child. Some characteristics may increase internal resistance of parents against psychological stress and also may prevent them from its consequences and diseases. Personality traits and resiliency can be noted among these moderating factors.
Resiliency or the ability to positively cope with the tragedy and trauma is considered as a psychological topic that some views recognize it as a response to a specific event and the others consider it as sustainable coping style. The reason for making the resiliency as an important research topic is that resiliency seems to be closely associated with personality dimensions.
Personality traits, as second factor, may have effects on the relationship between parents and exceptional children. Parents may also react to external distress such as having a child with autism or attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) based on their personality traits.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are parts of the neurodevelopmental disorders that affect cognitive and social abilities. The current study aims to compare the Personality Traits and Resilience in mothers of Children with Autism Disorder, Attention Deficit /Hyperactivity Disorder and normal children.
Methods: The population of this research includes all mothers of Children with Autism Disorder and ADHD in rehabilitation centers. The research samples also consist of 50 mothers of children with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 50 mothers of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who were selected by purposive sampling method and were assigned in two groups. Fifty mothers of normal children were selected as control group from Tabriz Welfare Organization staffs. Data were gathered by CD-RISC and NEO-FFI. The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC): Connor and Davidson designed this scale that measures the ability to cope with stress and damage. This tool has 25 items. A primitive study on the psychometric properties of this scale in general population and patient’s groups showed that this tool has internal consistency, convergent and divergent test-retest reliability. The reliability of the questionnaire in Iran with internal consistency of Cronbach's alpha is 0.89.
NEO Five-Factor Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI): This questionnaire consists of 60 items that was designed by McCrae & Costa to measure Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness). In Iran, the criterion validity for the subscales are reported 0.45 to 0.66 and also reliability of this test using Cronbach's alpha coefficients is calculated as 0.56 to 0.87.
Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics (Standard Deviation & Mean) and Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). Differences of group means were examined with Tukey's HSD (honest significant difference) test as a pot hoc test.
Results: The obtained results show that there is a significant difference only in the variable neuroticism of personality traits among the three groups (F=9.14; p<0.001). Eta coefficient also shows that 11% of the variance in neuroticism can be explained by the independent variable.
In resiliency variable, there are significant differences between the three groups (F=4.45; p<0.001). Eta coefficient for this variable shows that only 6% of the variance of resiliency can be explained by independent variable. Tukey's test as a pot hoc test showed that in neuroticism variable there are significant difference between ADHD group and healthy groups (p=0.001) and between autism group and control group (p=0.03) but there is  no significant difference between autism with individuals with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (p=0.20). According to the group means it can be said that parents of children with attention deficit /hyperactivity disorder have reported this factor more than the other factors and autism group is reported in the second one. There are significant differences between groups of autistic and normal groups in term of resiliency (p=0.01) but the difference between other groups are not significant. 
Conclusion: In general, having a child with attention deficit /hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may affect the mothers' mental health, especially their ability to cope with these problems or their resiliency and emotional stability compared with mothers of normal children.