Quality of Life in the Mothers of Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and its Effective Factors

Background and aims: Having a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may havean impact on the quality of life of his/her parents, particularly his/her mother. However, very limitedstudies have addressed this issue in Iran and the world. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examinethe quality of life in the mothers of children with ADHD and its effective factors.Methods: The present descriptive-analytic study was carried out in Tehran from April to September2016. A total of 110 mothers of ADHD children were enrolled in the study through a conveniencesampling method, who referred to psychiatric centers of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Aninformed consent form was obtained from all the participants as well. In addition, a researcher-madechecklist for demographic characteristics and the 36-item Short Form of Health Survey Questionnaire(SF-36) were utilized for data collection. The collected data were then entered into SPSS 16 statisticalsoftware. Finally, descriptive tests (mean and median) and statistical tests including Pearson correlationtest, independent t test, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used for data analysis.Results: The mean age of participated mothers was 39.5 years and most children were males (76.4%).The mean overall score of the quality of life was 60.6 ± 20.4. Among the eight dimensions of thequestionnaire, participants achieved the lowest score regarding the dimension of “the role limitationsdue to emotional problems” with the mean score of 52.43, while the highest score was observed interms of “the physical function” dimension with the mean score of 77.30. No significant relationshipwas observed between any of the demographic characteristics and the mean overall score of thequality of life (P > 0.05).Conclusion: In the present study, the quality of life of the mothers was not significantly differentfrom the quality of life of normal mothers. However, the healthcare team should pay more attentionregarding some dimensions of the quality of life. Eventually, similar studies are recommended to beconducted due to the lack of sufficient evidence regarding this issue among the mothers of ADHDchildren.