General health and its relationship with personality traits among mothers of children with special needs

Health and wellbeing of mothers of children with special needs as a vulnerable group in society is very important. Mental health is affected by many variables, the most important of which are personality traits. The aim of this study was to examine general health and its relationship with personality traits among mothers of children with special needs. This study used a comparative design. The statistical population of the current study included all mothers of children with special needs in Zahedan. The sample of the present study consisted of 240 mothers of children with cerebral palsy, autism, mental retardation, or physical retardation in Zahedan selected using convenience sampling method. To collect data, the 60-Item NEO personality inventory and the general health questionnaire were used. The results indicated a significant difference between mothers of children with cerebral palsy, autism, mental retardation, or physical retardation in terms of their general health. Among the NEO five-factor personality traits, neuroticism was positively correlated with general health while conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness were negatively related to general health. However, no significant relationship was found between openness and mothers’ general health. Moreover, the results showed that among the NEO five-factor personality traits, the subscales of neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and openness respectively played the most important roles in predicting the level of general health among the mothers. According to the results, it can be inferred that, compared to mothers of children with autism, mental retardation, or physical retardation, general health of mothers of children with cerebral palsy was at higher risk.