Frequency of depression among parents of children with cerebral palsy

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Background: Depression is the serious mental disorder that causes great effect on family members, specially the families of disabled children. Cerebral Palsy is the most common disability of children. Depression is very frequent in parents of Cerebral Palsy children because they are more attached and worried about their child’s health. Objective: The purpose of study is to determine the frequency and level of depression in parents of cerebral palsy children. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 148 parents of Cerebral Palsy children. The data was collected from different hospitals of Rawalpindi and Islamabad from 26th January 2018 to 26th July 2018. Population was selected using non-probability convenient sampling. Parents with at least one child with Cerebral Palsy were included whereas; parents with any diagnosed mental disorder were excluded along with those parents, who had a child with any other disorder than Cerebral Palsy. Standard questionnaire beck depression inventory was used to assess depression in the parents. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS 20. Results: Out of 148 participants 133 (89.90%) were mothers and 15 (10.10%) were fathers. Mean age of the participants were 29.85 years. In total, 83 (56.1%) parents were clinically depressed. Moderate level of depression was the most frequent level of depression i.e. (38) 25% followed by other categories. Mothers had greater severity of depression than fathers; total of 38 (25.5%) mothers had moderate level of depression. Fathers did not cross the borderline clinical depression category; only 3(20%) fathers were in borderline clinical depression category. Conclusion: The study concluded that most of the parents of children having cerebral palsy undergo moderate level of depression.