Parental stress in raising mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants

Objectives/Hypothesis To investigate the characteristics of parental stress in the child, parent, and total domains in families of Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants at four different time periods in the implantation process. Previous studies have shown that parental stress lessens after cochlear implantation surgery. Study Design Cross-sectional case series. Methods Self-reported questionnaires based on Abidin's Parenting Stress Index (Taiwanese edition) were filled out by 113 mothers of children with cochlear implants. Factors related to parental stress were analyzed. In addition, we calculated the percentage of families experiencing high levels of stress (percentile ≥90) and compared the differences in stress level between each time period (preoperatively, postoperative time < 2 years, postoperative time between 2 and 5 years, and postoperative time >5 years). Results Parent socioeconomic status, patient sex, and patient age were significantly related to the total parental stress. In the study of families experiencing high-stress between each time period, we found that parents had the highest level of parenting stress during the period of 0 to 2 years postoperatively in the total (odds ratio, 1.89) and child domain (odds ratio, 4.23). The contrary result was found in the parent domain, of which the highest odds ratio was found in the preoperative period. Conclusions Although parental stress in the parent domain lessened after the cochlear implantation surgery, parents experienced the highest level of total parental stress during the period of 0 to 2 years postoperatively. The degree of total parenting stress did not lessen after the cochlear implantation surgery.