Quality of life and coping strategies of caregivers of children with physical and mental disabilities

BACKGROUND: Developmental disability is a term that refers to permanent cognitive and or physical impairment. Arrested development of physical or mental capacities can lead to number of problems for the sufferer as well as the carers. METHODOLOGY: This study was conducted to assess the quality of life (QOL) and coping mechanisms used by the carers of physically challenged children. In this cross-sectional study, all the 116 children from a school for children with special needs in Anand, Gujarat and their carers were included. World Health Organization-QOL (WHO-QOL) and BREF COPE were administered to measure QOL and coping strategies, respectively. RESULTS: On WHO-QOL, the social relationship domain was observed to be the best while environment domain had the lowest score. The main coping style used by the caregivers was Active emotional coping. CONCLUSIONS: Significant differences were found in QOL of the caregivers of physically challenged children based on the type of disability of the child. Rehabilitation programs can be planned to provide psychological support to the caregivers to ease the burden if any through collaborative efforts.