Assessment of Quality of Life in Mothers of Visually Impaired Children.

Objective: To assess the factors that affect mothers' quality of life (QOL) and the association of various demographic variables with QOL of the respondents.

Study Design: A cross-sectional survey. Place and Duration of the Study: Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, from April to September 2023.

Methodology: Mothers of visually impaired children were selected through non-probability consecutive sampling. WHO QOL-BREF was used to analyse the QOL of the respondents. The Chi-square test of association was applied to determine the factors of QOL of the respondents.

Results: Out of 264, the majority of the visually impaired children were females (n = 144, 54.5%) and belonged to 5-8 years of age (n = 115, 43.6%). It was also noted that the majority of children had mild levels of visual impairment (n = 182, 69%). More than half of the mothers of visually impaired children were married to their cousins (n = 144, 54.5%) and belonged to rural areas (n = 140, 53%). Most of the mothers perceived that they had a good quality of life (n = 96, 36%) and were satisfied with their health status (n = 107, 40%). Mothers with poor QOL were slightly more in numbers compared to those with good QOL (n = 134. 51% vs. n = 130. 49%).

Conclusion: Mothers of visually impaired children exhibited poor QOL in all four domains. Major related factors associated with poor QOL of mothers were the age of the child, cause of disability, duration of disability, and duration of caregiving. While mother's related factors included marital status, outside family marriage, education, income level, number of children, and residence.

Key Words: Mothers, Quality of life, Rawalpindi, Tertiary care hospitals, Visually impaired children.