Self-perceptions and personal sources of support among Creole Belizean parents of mentally retarded children.

A modified version of the Kuhn-McPartland Twenty-Statement Test, a projective technique to measure self attitudes, was administered to six Creole Belizean mothers of mentally retarded children in Belize, Central America. Other methods of measurement included participant observation over a 13-month period, focused observations, formal, unstructured interviews, and daily calendars maintained by the parents. A central finding of the entire ethnographic study was that mothers relied almost exclusively on themselves and personal sources of support, like religion, for coping, rather than social support from others.