Research Article Open Access Ghimire, J Health Educ Res Dev 2017, 5:1 DOI: 10.4172/2380-5439.1000212 J o u r n a l o f H e a l t h E d u c a ti o n R e s e a r c h & D e v e l o p m e n t ISSN: 2380-5439 Journal of Health Education Research & Development Volume 5 • Issue 1 • 1000212 J Health Educ Res Dev, an open access journal ISSN: 2380-5439 Keywords: Stress; Coping; Parents; Children with congenital heart disease Introduction A new baby is the beginning of wonders, hopes and dreams and becoming parents is one of life’s greatest blessings. A parent’s dream of giving birth to the perfect child but the birth of a child with congenital heart disease challenges those dreams. Tis forces families to deal with a crisis for which they may be completely unprepared. Discovering one’s child has a disability causes major stress, this can disrupt the total family functioning [1]. Congenital heart disease (CHD) is now estimated to be the second most prevalent chronic illness may have efects that pervasive consequence for family life. Recently, focused on resiliency variables, especially support and coping strategy, regulating the impact of stress. In the resiliency model of family stress, adjustment and adaptation, social support is viewed as one of the primary mediators between stress and well-being [2]. India has a large population with a perceived incidence of congenital heart disease in 8 per 1000 live births in children; nearly 180,000 kids are born yearly with this problem. Of these 60,000 to 90,0000 are critical and need early treatment. Nearly 10% of the infant mortality seen is due to congenital heart defects. As the number of centers capable of handling this is very few, a huge number of children are added to this pool each year of Congenital Heart Disease [3]. It can be a great burden for parents to be informed that their child is sufering from heart disease. Te whole family might be afected and might undergo a stressful adjustment process, experiencing challenges such as attempting to understand the disease’s efects, coping with uncertainty, and seeking reassurance from healthcare providers. Experiences such as somatization, depression, anxiety, distress, hopelessness, and social isolation can also arise. Mothers might also feel guilt and might wrongly blame themselves or they might feel frustration over not having a healthy baby. Tose who have multiple children might additionally experience neglecting the healthy children [4]. Parents of children with heart disease were more likely than the normative population to report excessive parenting stress, especially related to characteristics of the child that make them difcult to parent. Tese parents expressed difculty with setting limits or discipline of the child with heart disease. Parenting stress was related to the severity of the child’s heart disease, family socioeconomic status, or time since most recent surgery. Clinicians must assess parenting stress at each health care visit to provide appropriate support and anticipatory guidance to families of children with heart disease [5]. Te objectives of the present study were to fnd out the level of stress and coping, to determine the relationship between stress and coping among the parents of children with Congenital Heart Disease and to fnd out the association of level of stress and level of coping with selected socio demographic variables. *Corresponding author: Pratima Ghimire, Nepal Medical College, Jorpati, Kathmandu, Tel: 09779849231817;E-mail: ppratima071@gmail.com Received November 11, 2016; Accepted March 07, 2017; Published March 10, 2017 Citation: Ghimire P (2017) Stress and Coping among the Parents of Children with Congenital Heart Disease: A Hospital Based Study. J Health Educ Res Dev 5: 212. doi: 10.4172/2380-5439.1000212 Copyright: © 2017 Ghimire P. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Introduction: Congenital heart defects are the most common, pervasive and serious chronic illness of all congenital malformations. The birth of a child can be stressful enough for many parents, turn into one of dashed joy and feeling of distress so there may be necessary for parents to obtain enough support from health professionals. Methods: A descriptive Correlational study was conducted among 142 parents of children with Congenital Heart Disease attending Pediatric Medical Out Patient Department in Shahid Gangalal National Heart Center, Bansbari, Kathmandu. Data were collected using pre-tested structured interview schedule in Nepali version. The obtained data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (chi-square and Karl Pearson’s coeffcient of correlation). Results: The fndings of the study revealed that near about three forth (71.8%) of parents had moderately level of stress whereas 28.2% had low level of stress and 79.6% had moderately helpful level of coping and 20.4% had minimally helpful level of coping. There was negative correlation between stress and coping (r=-0.076 and p-value=0.367) of parents. There were no any statistical association between socio-demographic characteristics of parents and stress level. Similarly, there were statistically signifcant association of level of coping with relationship with child, religion and occupation of parents (p-value 0.004, 0.002 and 0.005) respectively. Conclusion: The study concluded that with increased level of stress, there is decreased level of coping among the parents. Further, the fndings suggest that health personnel must assess parenting stress at each visit to provide appropriate support and anticipatory guidance to families of children with Congenital Heart Disease. Stress and Coping among the Parents of Children with Congenital Heart Disease: A Hospital Based Study Pratima Ghimire* Nepal Medical College, Jorpati, Kathmandu