MODERATING ROLE OF RESILIENCE ON PERCEIVED STIGMATIZATION AS A PREDICTOR OF BURNOUT AMONG PARENTS OF SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDRENIN ENUGU, ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated the moderating role of Resilience on Perceived Stigmatization as a predictor of Burnout among Parents with special needs children. A total of 274 participants drawn from Parents of Special need Children in Enugu comprising of 114 males and 160 females with the age range of 27 years to 64 years, with a mean age of 41.90 and standard deviation of 10.21were used for the study. Mix sampling technique was adopted in the study whereby systematic sampling technique was used to select the schools that will participate in the study (Assemblies of God Vocational and Skill Centre = 60, Calvary Foundation Institute of Technology = 43, St Joseph Institute Technical College = 74, and Special Education Centre = 97) while convenient sampling technique (participants who were willing to participate in the study) was used to select the participants for the study.  Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA), Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) and The Perceived Public Stigma Scale (PPSSS) were use in the study. Correlation design was adopted while Hierarchical Multiple Regression statistics result revealed that perceived stigma significantly predicted burnout (β = .70, t = 16.60, p<.01) and resilience significantly predicted burnout ( β = -1.00, t = -17.79 p<.01). Finally, the result shows that interaction between resilience and perceived stigmatization is significantly negative (t = -3.46, P < .01; LLCI, ULCI = -.20, -.06). The outcome of the study not only contributed to academic discourse but empirically showed that higher perceived stigma increases burnout while higher resilience reduces burnout, and resilience weakens the negative impact of stigma on burnout.

 Key Words: Resilience. Stigmatization, Burnout, Special Needs