The purpose of this dissertation is to research the difference of stress of mothers' according to their region of medium and small sized cities, with comprehensive research on their stress per their educational, social, economical, psychological, and physical field with subjects of mothers with mentally retarded children in medium and small cities. For it, subject areas of this study were chosen as Gumi, Gimcheon, Sangju, and Mungyeong. Gumi was classified as a midium sized city, and Gimcheon, Sangju, and Mungyeong were as small sized cities. Questionnaire research was done from October 27 to November 24, 2007 by direct visiting, distributing, and collecting method. Total 120 pieces were used for result analysis by SPSSWIN(Version 14.0) Program.
The results were revealed as follows;
First, as for the degree of their stress per field, the highest stress was found as educational stress. And, next were economical stress, psychological stress, social stress, and physical stress in order.
Second, the stress of the mothers in small cities(3.41) were slightly higher than that of the mothers in medium cities(3.25).
As for the stress per region, mothers in small cities recognized the economical stress higher than those in medium cities. Next were educational stress, psychological stress, social stress, and physical stress in order. The higher stress of those in small cities were seemed that it was caused by their lack opportunity of educational environment and income.