The purpose of this study was to clarify factors that influenced stress in mothers with handicapped children. Thirty mothers (Age±SD: 37.5±4.8) living in Aomori were participated in this study. We assessed the mother's stress using the Japanese version of the Zarit Caregiver Burden Interview. We also investigated child's age, sex, body weight, type of diseases, birth order, Barthel Index of activities of daily living (ADL), the behavior disturbance index with handicapped children, mother's job, whether mother has back pain or not, whether there is enough family cooperation or not. Multiple regression was used for statistical analysis. The results revealed that the factors influencing mothers' stress were child's body weight, behavior disturbances, and cooperation of their family (p<0.05). Child's ADL didn't influence the mothers' stress indicating that the care of child's ADL has been accepted as one of the mother's proper roles. On the other hand, they were hard to accept child's behavior disturbances. These results suggest that children's behavior disturbances have to be taken into consideration when rehabilitation is performed in handicapped children.
