Maternal Resilience: Assets and Resources Utilized When Parenting Adolescents with Congenital Heart Defects

Abstract

Mothers of adolescents with congenital heart defects (CHD), or those acquired during childhood, face unique parenting stressors. Using resiliency theory and family systems theory as theoretical frameworks, the current study aimed to understand how mothers of adolescents with CHD build resiliency. Mothers of adolescents with CHD ages (13-19 years) were recruited from nine healthcare or psychosocial service organizations serving children with CHD across the USA. Mothers (N=100) completed an online survey designed to measure their level of resilience, promotive factors of internal assets (specifically self-esteem, self-efficacy, and spirituality), access to and utilization of promotive factors of resources (such as support networks, financial supports, or Internet resources), as well as open-ended responses regarding their experience of parenting an adolescent with CHD. The Resilience Scale, General Self- Efficacy Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Spiritual Insight and Behavioral Scale were utilized to measure assets and questions related to access and utilization of resources were developed. Analyses including descriptive statistics, one-way between groups ANOVAs, independent sample t-tests, and Pearson correlations revealed that maternal resilience scores were significantly associated with age of mother, self-efficacy scores, and access/utilization of specific resources such as psychosocial staff support, counseling or therapeutic support, and informal financial support. Maternal Resilience was also correlated with adolescent resilience scores as reported by the mother. Themes from open-ended responses such as definitions of resilience, desired resources, barriers to resources, and advice to other mothers reinforce the quantitative results. This study underscores the need for psychosocial and healthcare service providers to better understand maternal resilience, strengthen internal assets, provide external resources, and provide more targeted interventions for assistance with building their resilience.