Zihin Engelli Çocuğu Olan Ailelerin Yaşam Doyumları, İyimserlik ve Psikolojik Belirti Düzeylerinin İncelenmesi

In this study, life satisfaction, optimism and psychological symptom levels of parents with disabled children were examined and it was investigated whether optimism and psychological symptoms predicted life satisfaction or not. Independent variable of the research is optimism level. Dependent variable is life-satisfaction. The study was conducted on parents who have children with disabilities in Afyonkarahisar in 2015-2016, as well as parents who had applied to the Guidance and Research Center (RAM). Despite reaching 600 data sources in total in this process, data gained from 496 parents in total were analyzed because of the lack of answers in the measurement tools. Regression analysis was conducted to explain the level of life satisfaction of the parents' levels of optimism and psychological symptoms, and to determine the predictive power. In this research it was found that parents with mentally handicapped children had a meaningful relationship between optimism and average life satisfaction scores. Another important finding is that psychological symptoms and optimism levels of parents significantly explain and predict the life satisfaction. It has been suggested that group guidance and psycho-education programs should be organized according to the level of psychological symptoms and whether they are optimistic or not in order to increase the life satisfaction of parents.