Quality of life of parents and siblings of children with cochlear implants

• Published in: 中华耳科学杂志（英文版） 2019, Vol.14 (1), p.17-21
• Main Authors: Cila Umat, Nor Haniza Abdul Wahat, Sakinah Che Ross, Bee See Goh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1672-2930
• DOI: 10.3760/j.issn.1672-2930.2019.01.004

Objectives:This study examined the quality of life (QoL) of the parents and siblings of hearing-impaired children with cochlear implants (CIs).Design:This is a cross-sectional,questionnaire-based study.The questionnaire consists of three sub-domains-interaction,emotional well-being and support for the hearing-impaired child and the overall QoL-and two open-ended questions for participants to provide comments and suggestions to enhance their family's QoL.A total of 63 questionnaires were e-mailed or mailed to families who met the inclusion criteria.Setting:The study was conducted under the Center for Rehabilitation & Special Needs,Faculty of Health Sciences,Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,Kuala Lumpur.Participants:A total of 79 parents and 23 siblings from 44 families of children with CI participated in this study.Main outcome measures:The mean score for each of the sub-domain and the overall QoL for both subject groups were computed.The answers for the open-ended questions were listed and organized into themes.Results:There were significant correlations between the overall QoL score and each of the test domains for the parents' group (p ＜ 0.01).For the siblings' group,only the interaction and support domains were significant.Interaction was the main sub-domain affecting the parents' QoL but for siblings,this could not be determined.A total of 60％ of the pooled comments were classified as ‘concerns'.As for the suggestions,38.7％ requested some form of support,mainly financial (41.7％).Conclusions:Families with hearing impaired children with CI have numerous concerns that need to be addressed,even though,on average,they were satisfied with their overall QoL.