Quality of Life of Parents of Children With Refractory Seizures Referred to a Hospital in Ahvaz, Iran

Abstract

Background and Objectives Up to 25% of children with epilepsy experience resistance to treatment and recurrence of seizures and have low quality of life (QoL) in various dimensions. Limited evidence is available on the QoL of the parents of these patients in the south of Iran. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the QoL of parents with children having refractory epilepsy in Ahvaz, Iran Subjects and Methods Using a sequential sampling method, 157 parents of 113 children with refractory epilepsy who referred to the neurology clinic of Golestan Hospital in Ahvaz city during 2009-2016 were selected to participate in the study. The 36-item short form health survey (SF-36) was used to assess the QoL of parents. The significance level of statistical tests was set at 0.05. Results The mean age of parents was 35.2±8.5 years and the mean age of children was 7.1±2.6 years. Of 157 parents, 98 (62.4%) were mothers and the rest were fathers. The children had seizures for 3.1±1.6 years. The mean score of SF-36 was 62.6±21.4. In all domains of the SF-36, mothers had significantly lower scores than fathers (P<0.000). Conclusion The QoL of parents with children having resistant epilepsy, especially their mothers, in Ahvaz is lower compared to the general population of Iranian