Written by Jennifer Oddy, Entitled: Distress And Coping of Mothers of Children With Muscular Dystrophy

Introduction

The purpose of this literature review is to discuss the current knowledge regarding experiences of mothers who care for their child with muscular dystrophy, their coping mechanisms, and to understand their lived experiences in order to provide better nursing care to these mothers. Not only will the current knowledge be addressed, this literature review will also speak to what is unknown about this phenomenon. The concepts of maternal stress/well-being, adjustment, anxiety, and coping will all be addressed as common themes emerging from the data. 

The research question for this study is:
What are the lived experiences of mothers who care for their child with muscular dystrophy? 

The search for literature took place in the spring of 2015, which was completed using EBSCOhost to search 17 online databases through the Regis College Library. Google Scholar was also used, which brought up articles from PubMed that have been utilized. Eight peer- reviewed research journal articles were obtained and scrutinized for the purpose of this review of literature and the literature matrix (Appendix B). Search terms included: children, chronic disease, mother, distress, coping, muscular dystrophy, maternal experience, stress, and adjustment. To ensure the most relevant literature was cited, the majority of the articles were from 2007-2013. One article was from 2003, two from 2005, and the remaining five articles were between 2007 and 2013. The older articles were included for the purpose of their significance to the subject matter. However, this gap in literature provides evidence that there is need for further research regarding the lived experiences of mothers who care for their child with muscular dystrophy. 

This review of literature will include empirical and theoretical sections, as well as a brief description of how the researcher arrived at this topic of interest. In the empirical literature section, the literature from eight peer-reviewed journals will be synthesized. Individual findings from certain articles will be cited in order to provide details about the experiences of mothers caring for their child with muscular dystrophy. These experiences will then be related to the discipline of psychology, demonstrating the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach. The empirical literature will be concluded with the gap in literature and why there is a need to further investigate this topic. These topics are all used to form the following sub-headings: overview, lifestyle as a contributor to maternal stress and well-being, difficulty adjusting, anxiety directly relates to quality of life, the struggles of coping, maternal stress related to other disciplines, a summary, and the gaps in literature. The purpose of these sub-headings is to organize the empirical literature section.