Abstract:
Abstract
Mother of children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) plays an essential role in the
successful rehabilitation of their children which may affect their mental health.
The aim of this study is to find out the level of depression of mothers of
children with CP. The objectives are to find out socio-demographic
characteristics, common depressive symptoms, level of depression of the
mothers and also to find out the association between socio-demographic
characteristics and severity of depression of mothers. A cross sectional study
was conducted in the pediatric unit of Centre for the Rehabilitation of the
Paralysed (CRP) at Savar and Mirpur. 110 participants were included in
conveniently. Socio-demographic questionnaire, Depression Scale-DS was
used for data collection and analysis was done by using Statistical Package for
Social Science (SPSS) version 17.0. In this study, it was found that most of the
participants‟ (43.6%) were 21-25 years, 39.1% (n=43) had education up to
secondary school, 93.6% (n=103) were married, 92.7% (n=102) were Muslim,
41.8 % (n=46) came from urban areas, 40.0 % (n=44) took care their children
for 6-10 hours, 50.9% (n=56) had only one child and 63.6% (n=70) came
from middle socio-economic status. In case of common depressive symptoms,
crying was very common 49.1% (n=54), 42.7% (n=47) participants reported
low mood and 38.2% (n=42) reported lack of pleasure. Moreover, mostly
(61.8%) had minimal level of depression. There were significant association
between educational status (p> .013), marital status (p> .002) and
socioeconomic status (p>.032) with level of depression of the participants. In
conclusion, it seems that having a CP child lead to maternal depression so, to
improve rehabilitation processes psychological support for mothers is needed.
