Sense of Family Coherence in Parents of (Sub) Optimally Developing Children

Abstract

The theoretical basis of the paper is Aron Antonovsky’s salutogenetic model of health, which is based on the salutogenic orientation and the sense of coherence understood as the central concept and the most important resource. The primary aim of the study is to determine the strength of the sense of family coherence in parents of optimally developing children and in parents of suboptimally developing children and their correlation with: family satisfaction and family orientation to crisis situations. The study was done using parents (N = 394) sampled from the population of the Republic of Serbia. Questionnaire for Obtaining Basic Data, The Family Sense of Coherence Scale, The Family Adaptation Scale and Family Crisis-oriented Scales were used for the purposes of this study. The findings of the study showed that parents of optimally developing children have a more heightened sense of family coherence than parents of suboptimally developing children. Also, the findings showed positive correlation with: family satisfaction and family orientation to crisis, and family sense of coherence. More precisely, the sense of family coherence in the parents who participated in the research correlates positively with satisfaction with one’s own family and family orientation to crisis.