Quality of life of families and mothers of children with cerebral palsy, with or without epilepsy

Abstract

Aim: The effects of the presence of epilepsy in Cerebral palsy (CP) on the quality of life (QOL) of mothers and their families are not clear. In this regard, our study aimed to evaluate the effects of the presence of epilepsy in CP on the QOL of mothers and families. Material and Methods: The study was conducted with 61 mothers whose children had CP, and 25 mothers with healthy children as the control group. Mothers whose children had CP were divided into two groups: children with epilepsy (n = 22) and children without epilepsy (n = 39). All mothers assessed their QOL using the Short Form-36 (SF-36) questionnaire, and their family life qualities were assessed with the Beach Center Family Quality of Life (BC-FQOL) scale. Results: Despite the fact that mothers of children with CP had the lowest scores on the SF-36 for the physical component summary (PCS) and for the mental component summary (MCS) scores compared with the epilepsy group, there was no significant difference between the groups (p> 0.05). In the BC-FQOL, emotional well-being and disability-related support scores were significantly lower in the epilepsy group (p <0.05). Discussion: Mothers of epileptic children with CP have a worse QOL tendency in both physical and mental health, but there is no significant difference compared to the other mothers.