Bedouin Hearing Parents of Children With Hearing Loss: Stress, Coping, and Quality of Life

The authors examine parenting stress and coping strategies and their relation to satisfaction with family quality of life in a unique population: hearing Bedouin parents of children born with partial or total hearing loss in southern Israel. Could variables previously shown to predict families' quality of life in other populations with children with hearing loss also predict it in this underserved population? The study participants were 84 parents who responded to questionnaires. It was found that parenting stress affects satisfaction with the family's everyday functioning and that parents cope mainly by obtaining familial and social support and redefining the crisis situation. The latter strategy appears to improve the family's overall quality of life, whereas, surprisingly, cochlear implants do not. Thus, for such parents in traditional, marginalized societies, enhancing effective coping mechanisms may help reduce parenting stress and increase satisfaction with the family's quality of life.