抄録
Background and aims:
The paper assess the quality of life of the families with a disabled child who have addressed to our rehabilitation center. Knowing the quality of life of these families helps us to assess families’ need for suport and services and to find together proper therapeutically solutions.
Our aims are:
To evaluate the life quality of families faced with disability
To find together proper therapeutically solutions
Material and methods:
Our study group included 60 families with a disabled child, evaluated between 2011-2013 in National Pediatric Rehabilitation Center “Dr.Nicolae Robanescu”, Bucharest . The used methods were: observation, clinical interview with children and parents, FQOLS (Family Quality Life Survey) 2006.
Results:
Regarding the family structure, 12 families include also the grandparents (extended family), 44 are biparental families (nuclear families) and 4 mono parental families. The most involved members of the family are the parents (in 30 families), 80 % of them being the mothers (mothers feel themselves in general overcharged). Family health is important for all the families and for most of them (50 families) the major obstacle in treatment is the delayed time before admission as they have great expectations from the treatment. Regarding the financial income most of the families have a medium one (52 families) and the financial wellbeing is important to them. Our study revealed that the relationships into the family are also disturbed when a child is diagnosed with a disability.
Conclusions:
When a child is diagnosed with a disability the whole life of the family is changed. The mechanisms of coping, psychological support and counselling, psychiatric referral where it is needed, besides the other therapeutic interventions (physical therapy, occupational therapy) play an important role in improving the life quality of families with a disabled child. Our local communities through medical, educational and social services, public awareness activities regarding the needs of the family may contribute to improve the life quality of these families.
