Published Paper Details:

Cerebral palsy (Falij e Dimagh) is a non-progressive neurological disorder of childhood and the prevalence is 2 cases per 1000 live births. Among the large variety of childhood developmental disabilities, cerebral palsy (CP) is considered to be the major physical disability affecting the functional development of children. Presence of child with Cerebral Palsy in a family generates profound emotional stress and feeling of unhappiness. The present study was designed to assess and compare the Quality of Life among mothers of children with cerebral palsy and mothers of children with normal development in physical, psychological, social and environmental domains. Two sample groups were chosen from a total of 60 mothers to response the questionnaire WHOQoL. The first group included 30 mothers of children with cerebral palsy who were attended to the Out Patient Department of Borella Ayurveda Teaching Hospital. The second group consisted of 30 mothers of children with Normal Development living in Colombo. T-tests by SPSS were used for statistical analysis. There were significant differences in three domains of QOL between mothers of healthy children and mothers of children with cerebral palsy (p<0.005). The results of this study revealed that, the quality of life of mothers of children with Cerebral Palsy was significantly different in physical, psychological and environmental domains compared to mothers of healthy children. Therefore, appropriate rehabilitation programs for children with Cerebral Palsy and the proper Psychological support for mothers should be provided to improve their quality of life in different domains.