Estresse, auto-eficácia e o contexto de adaptação familiar de mães de portadores de transtornos globais do desenvolvimento

The Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) has been described as a severe developmental disorder that presents deficits in three areas: abilities of reciprocal social interaction, communication abilities, and repetitive behaviors and interests (DSM-IV-Tr, 2002). The own characteristics of the behavior, added to the severity of the disorder can be potential stressors for family and/or caregivers. The literature review shows that it has been approached, mainly, based on the “deficit models”, which focalize, predominantly, the family’s psychopathology. It is argued that the Bradford’s Biopsicossocial Adaptation to Chronic Illness Model (1997), can be useful in the understanding of the developmental disorders, because it claims attention for the interaction among some important factors: Health beliefs, social support, interaction patterns, family communication and coping strategies. The main proposal of this study is to investigate the possible relationships between parental self-efficacy and stress in mothers of children with TGD. It is also examined the maternal perception concerning the received social support, concerns and difficulties to deal with the son, coping strategies, beliefs and relationship among family members. The results points high maternal stress levels and high levels of parental selfefficacy, however it was not found negative correlation between them. The qualitative analysis shows that the quality of the family relationship, net of social support and coping strategies are mediators of the effect of TGD upon maternal stress. The data corroborate the premises of the Biopsicossocial Adaptation to Chronic Illness Model, when demonstrating that the presence of a member with TGD in the family doesn't necessarily represent an adverse event for mothers, since a mediation exists by social support, perception and identification of the intra and extrafamiliar resources, effective strategies of coping and systems of health quality, being particularly important, the quality of the family relationships. Key-Words:Transtornos Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD); Family stress; parental self-efficacy.