Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare (Nov 2023)

Caregiver’s Quality of Life Among Children with Cerebral Palsy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Various Influencing Factors: A Single Cohort Study

  • Tedla JS,
  • Asiri F,
  • Reddy RS,
  • Gular K,
  • Kakaraparthi VN,
  • Sangadala DR,
  • Dixit S,
  • Alamri AM,
  • Narne VK,
  • Alasmari RAM,
  • Dhafer OA,
  • Al Shamer MA

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 16
pp. 3705 – 3714

Abstract

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Jaya Shanker Tedla,1 Faisal Asiri,1 Ravi Shankar Reddy,1 Kumar Gular,1 Venkata Nagaraj Kakaraparthi,1 Devika Rani Sangadala,1 Snehil Dixit,1 Ahlam Mohammed Alamri,2 Vijaya Kumar Narne,1 Rawan Abdullah Mohammed Alasmari,3 Omer Abdullah Dhafer,1 Mohammed Ahmed Al Shamer1 1Program of Physical Therapy, Department of Medical Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Khalid University, Abha, Aseer, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; 2Department Rehabilitation Health Services, Armed Forces Hospital Southern Region, Khamis Mushayat, Aseer, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; 3Department of Rehabilitation, Disabled Child Association - Aseer Center, Abha, Aseer, Kingdom of Saudi ArabiaCorrespondence: Jaya Shanker Tedla, Program of Physical Therapy, Department of Medical Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Khalid University, Abha, Aseer, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Tel +966 538901083, Fax +966 17 2419516, Email [email protected]: Quality of life (QOL) among disabled children and their caregivers is an important concern in healthcare. We aim to evaluate the quality of life among caregivers of children with cerebral palsy and to observe the effects of various demographic factors and affected child-related factors on caregivers’ quality of life.Patients and Methods: After ethical approval and written consent was obtained from the participants. One hundred six caregivers of children with cerebral palsy from the Asir region were recruited for the study. Caregivers provided details, including their demographic characteristics, social factors, and information regarding their affected children regarding age, gender, mobility levels, etc. They also completed the Arabic version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire for assessing their QOL.Results: All the caregivers were women; their mean age was 40.38 years and SD7.09, and the overall QOL mean and standard deviations were 66.38 ± 12.88. There was a moderately significant correlation between total QOL in comparison with caregivers’ educational level and mobility capacity, with R values of 0.54 (p< 0.001) and 0.62 (p< 0.001), respectively.Conclusion: All the subdomains of WHOQOL-BREF were found to be very closely related to the total scores for QOL. The caregivers of children with cerebral palsy had better QOL scores than the cutoff scores proposed in the WHOQOL-BREF scale. Factors such as increased mobility and education of the affected child contributed to better total QOL scores.Keywords: caretakers, life participation, disability, pediatric, cerebral paralysis

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