Stress and coping among African American and Hispanic parents of deaf children

The authors conducted a correlational study of 98 parents of children with hearing loss to determine the relationships among the parents' stress levels, their reported coping strategies, and the demographic characteristics of themselves and their hearing-impaired children. One unexpected finding was the low level of stress expressed by the sample. One predicted relationship was found. The communicative ability through signing of the child was significantly related to level of stress. The predicted relationships between a parent's marital status, a parent's educational level, the child's sex, and the age at onset of the hearing loss were not confirmed. The study revealed that racial and ethnic group membership was significantly related to the degree of use of several coping strategies. Hispanics differed significantly from African Americans in that they made greater use of coping strategies.