Life Management and quality of life of parents of children with diverse disabilities

This paper reports on the second of two studies which involved a cross-national application of the Life Management Scale (LMS; Scorgie, Wilgosh, & McDonald, 1997), developed in Alberta, Canada, to families of children with disabilities in Italy. The first study (Wilgosh, Nota, Scorgie, & Soresi, 2004) identified similarities in effective life management among families of children with disabilities cross-nationally, as well as some differences specific to disability groups. In order to increase our knowledge of both similarities as well as differences among these families, the Italian data collection was extended to additional disability groups, including Down syndrome, autism, visual and auditory impairment, and a control group of families with no children having disabilities. As well as examining effective life management (LMS), family self-efficacy beliefs (How much faith do I have in myself? Parents' questionnaire; Soresi, Nota, & Sgaramella, 2003) and quality of life (My life as a parent; Soresi, Nota, & Sgaramella, 2003) were considered. As with our first study, findings indicated that there were broad commonalities across family groupings, as well as differences between disability groupings, regarding the effective life management strategies and the interrelationships among life management strategies, parent self-efficacy, and quality of life ratings.