Impact of mother's care burden, fatigue and child's functional level on quality of life in spastic cerebral palsy.

Background and purpose: Cerebral palsy (CP) may be considered one of the most common motor disabilities that require a lot of caregiving from mothers or caregivers; therefore, the mothers of children with CP face a lot of difficulties in their caregiving, which in turn may affect the child's quality of life (QOL). This work was conducted to evaluate the impact of the children's functional level in different types of spastic CP, mothers' care burden (CB), and fatigue on the child's QOL.

Methods: One hundred thirty-eight children with different types of spastic CP (unilateral and bilateral) with different levels of the gross motor function classification system (GMFCS), with an age range of 6-12 years, and their mothers with ages ranged from 25 to 45 years, participated in this study. Mother CB, fatigue, and child QOL were measured and compared between different groups by using the Zarit burden Interview (ZBI), Chalder Fatigue Questionnaire (CFQ), and Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) CP Module, respectively.

Results: There were significant differences in all measured variables (ZBI, CFQ, GMFCS, and PedsQL) with p-value <0.001 among the different spastic groups (unilateral and bilateral CP). However, the results revealed a positive impact of the child's GMFCS, mother's CB, and fatigue level on the quality of the child's life, with a greater effect on those with quadriplegic type.

Conclusion: The mother's CB and fatigue should be considered in the rehabilitation of spastic CP children based on their GMFCS, as they have a negative impact on child QOL; therefore, helping the mother with her needs should not be ignored, especially in families with severely spastic CP children and low financial income.