Quality of life among the mothers of mentally challenged children at special schools

Abstract

Birth of the special child is a major shock for the parents and has distressing effects on social, family, psychological, emotional, economical and interpersonal relationship of the parents. Many factors can influence the quality of life of the parents with mentally challenged children in family. Objectives:(1) The present study is aimed to assess the quality of life among the mothers of mentally challenged children in selected special schools at Ernakulam, Kerala; (2) To determine the association between quality of life and selected demographical variables like age, education, occupation, type of family, area of living, number of children's affected with disability, severity of disability. Methods: 30 mothers of mentally children who presented to the Navajeevan special school at Ernakulam from June to July 2019 were enrolled after getting informed consent and study approval. Demographic data of children and mothers in the study group by convenient sampling were entered into a proforma and the mothers were administered with WHO-QOL BREF Questionnaire to assess the Quality of life. Results: The study results were found that mothers had low to moderate Quality of life in all the domains, i.e., physical health, psychological health, social relationship, environmental health. Higher mean score was observed in the social relationship domain. When the educational status of the parent is higher, mothers reported a low Quality of life score, though no such difference was seen with the educational status, occupation of mothers or other variables. Conclusion: These finding must be taken into account in providing better and more specific supports and interventions for mothers to improving Quality of life. Social support and different coping strategies should be developed to respond positively to individual changing needs of mothers from the stress of having a child with disabilities.