Ramil AHMADOV, Nazlı DEMİR, Merve KURT, Tülay TARSUSLU

The Investigation of Relationship between Functional Mobility Levels of Children with Chronic Disability and Caregivers’ Quality of Life

Purpose: This study aims to look at the relationship between carers' quality of life and the functional mobility levels of children with chronic disabilities.Methods: The study included 30 children (22 boys, 8 girls) with chronic disabilities and their caregivers. The socio-demographic characteristics of the children and caregivers were collected.Caregivers' quality of life was evaluated with the Adult Carer Quality of Life Questionnaire (AC-QoL), and children’s functional mobility was evaluated with the mobility subscale of the Pediatric Evaluation Of Disability Inventory (PEDI-Mobility). Results: The age of the children included in the study was 7.0 (5.0-12.0) years and the age of their caregivers was 38.00 (32.75-41.25) years. The AC-QoL score of caregivers was 85.00 (72.00-93.50) out of a total of 120 points, and the PEDI-Mobility score was 33.00 (3.75-53.00) out of a total of 58 points. In the correlation analysis, no significant correlation was found between the PEDI-Mobility total score and the AC-QoL total score (p>0.05).However, there was a negative correlation between the PEDI-Mobility total score and the AC-QoL “ability to care” subscale score(r= -0.403; p=0.027). Conclusion: According to the results of the study, no relationship was found between the functional levels of children and the quality of life of their caregivers. Studies with a larger sample size and consideration of aspects including sociocultural level, economic considerations, and health services that may affect the quality of life of families are regarded to be necessary in order to achieve more conclusive findings on this subject.

Keywords:

Children with Disabilities, Caregiver, Quality of Life,

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