(2018) Science and education, 5-6, 118-122. Odessa.

Hanna Sokolova,
PhD (Candidate of Psychological Sciences), senior lecturer,
South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushynsky,
4, Fontanska Doroha Str., Odesa, Ukraine

PECULIARITIES OF EMOTIONAL BURNOUT SYNDROME
OF PARENTS UPBRINGING CHILDREN WITH DOWN SYNDROME

The paper aims to analyze the results of an empirical study of the features of emotional burnout of parents upbringing children with Down syndrome. The study of the peculiarities of emotional burnout syndrome in parents having children with Down syndrome is a topical issue of modern special psychology. Despite the important role of parents in shaping the personality of a child with Down syndrome, the problem of theoretical and empirical research of this context in science is understudied. Despite the psychosocial significance of the issue, in psychological science, mostly the emotional burnout of representatives of caring professions has been studied. In the context of the study, the examination of the emotional burnout of parents is of particular importance, since the parentage of children with Down syndrome involves constant communication with deep immersion in the problem. The impossibility of explaining the nature of the burnout by medical categories prompted scientists to turn to psychological factors: conflicts at work, financial problems, increased workload, and for women – also homework. The most common symptoms of emotional burnout involve a feeling of emotional exhaustion, the inability to work with the full force, dehumanization as a tendency to cynicism and negativism with respect to dependent persons (patient, client, subordinate, student), negative self-perception. Emotional burnout is manifested in the form of increased activity at the beginning of work, fatigability, the search for guilty, depression or aggression and all sorts of psychosomatic reactions, despair. It has been found that the most relevant problems for parents of children with Down syndrome is the desire to restrict their professional duties and incomplete adequacy of emotional response. If these symptoms manifest together, parents seek to limit their professional activities, minimize other work and to focus on the upbringing of their children. The resistance phase is formed in parents to a greater extent than other components of emotional burnout. Inside this phase, inadequate emotional response and reduction of responsibilities, which are likely to reinforce each other, are predominant.

 personality, emotional burnout, psychological state, symptom.

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