Resilience and coherence in families of children with intellectual disabilities

Family sense of coherence (FSOC) is regarded as an important salutogenetic resource, promoting resilience in families facing ongoing adversity such as the disability of child. The relationship between family sense of coherence (FSOC), family functioning, self-reported stress, and coping behaviors was explored in a study of 327 families of children with intellectual disability. In addition, measures of practical skills, cognitive and social competencies, and deviant behaviors were applied. Concerning reliability and validity, the German version of the FSOC scale proved to be comparable to the original version by Antonovsky. Factor analyses demonstrated that the subscales comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness are interrelated and cannot be regarded as independent. In regression analyses, FSOC emerged as the strongest predictor of parental stress. The study underscores the significance of family-related variables for the process of adaptation to life with a child with an intellectual disability.