Investigation of Life Satisfaction of The Parents Who Have Children With Special Needs in Terms of Their Compassion and Self-Understanding Levels

In this research it is aimed to examine the life satisfaction of self-understanding and compassion levels of parents who have children with special needs. The main variables of the study were self-understanding, compassion and life satisfaction. Arithmetic mean, weighted mean, t test, F test, Pearson correlation coefficient and Stepwise regression analysis techniques were used in the analysis of the data. The group of the study comprised of 301 parents, including 188 mothers and 113 fathers, who have children with special needs attending the rehabilitation center, mainstream school, lower class and an educational practice school in Konya in 2016. According to research findings, significant relationships were found between these parents’ self-understanding, compassion levels and life satisfaction. Parental compassion level sub-dimensions are significantly associated with compassion, indifference, consciousness of sharing, disconnection, severity of relationship and life satisfaction. Negligence, disconnection and severance, which are the negative dimensions of compassion scale, have negative relationship with life satisfaction, while humaneness and parents with higher scores of sharing, which are the positive dimension of compassion scale, have higher life satisfaction levels. Another important finding is that levels of self-understanding and compassion predict life satisfaction at a meaningful level. According to research findings, psychological counseling and guidance services can be given to increase the self-understanding, compassionate attitudes and life satisfaction of parents who have children with special needs