The purpose of this study was to contribute to family nursing in the areas of reducing stress and improving coping for parents of mentally retarded children. Data were collected through self-report questionnaires during a period of 2 months between November 1994 and January 1995 in the Kyoung-in area. The subjects consist of 176 parents (88 mothers and 88 fathers) of mentally retarded children attending schools for the handicapped. The levels of general stress and of parental role stress were measured with the General stress scale and the Parental role stress scale, respectively. The coping scale developed by Folkman and Lazarus was adopted to measure the level of coping, and the patterns of adaptation scale developed by Damrosch and Perry was adopted to measure the patterns of adaptation. The data were analyzed by a SAS program using Fisher's exact test, paired t-test, and oneway ANOVA. The results are as follows: 1. The level of general stress was significantly higher in mothers than in fathers. Mothers experienced a significantly greater level of parental role stress than fathers did. No significant difference in the level of coping was observed between mothers and fathers. There were differences in maternal and paternal patterns of adaptation. 2. The adaptation pattern of fathers was different according to their level of general stress, parental role stress and coping. The adaptation pattern of mothers was not different according to their level of general stress and parental role stress, but was according to their level of coping. 3. General stress experienced by fathers was different according to education, health status and support from their spouses. Satisfaction with family life, satisfaction with spouse and the support from spouse influenced coping used by fathers. Their level of parental role stress was not associated with any of their general characteristics. 4. In mothers, the level of general stress was different according to their health status, the level of parental role stress was related to satisfaction with family life and satisfaction with spouse. Their level of coping was associated with the support from spouse. The above findings indicate that mothers did not have more coping strategies than fathers did, despite the results which showed that mothers experienced greater stress than fathers did. Especially, the adaptation pattern of mothers was different according to their level of coping. Hence, nursing interventions directed at managing stress and improving coping should be used with mothers who use adaptation pattern 1. In particular, fathers should actively participate in parenting, and support their spouses.