Quality of Life for Caregivers` of Children with Congenital Heart Disease in Surgical Specialty Hospitals' Cardiac Center Kurdistan Region/Iraq

Abstract

Objective: The study aims to assess quality of life for caregivers who have children with congenial heart disease in Surgical Specialty Hospital - Cardiac Center in Erbil city.

Methods: Descriptive design of study was carried out in Surgical Specialty Hospital - Cardiac Center in Erbil city in first of July 2009 to end of September 2010. A purposive sample of (200) caregivers for children with congenital heart disease were selected. The tool is consisting of three parts questionnaire format (Socio-demographical characteristic and medical data) of caregivers and children, and tool for assessment the quality of life adapted of WHO was used for data collection, (WHO-QOL,1998). A few modifications were done with the tool, The validity of the study questionnaire was determined initially through a panel of (21) experts. Determination of reliability of the total QOL Alpha correlation coefficient was computed and indicated was (0.912). The data were analyzed through using by Excel and SPSS version17 programmed.

Results: The findings of the study indicate that the caregivers had been affected in all domains of quality of life and there is a significant association between socio-demographic characteristics (main caregivers, age, marital status, occupation, residential area, socio-economic and severity of disease) with quality of life domains, but there were no association between level of education and quality of life domains.

Conclusions: Most of the caregivers were mothers and housewives, their age groups were between (26-35) years old, were of urban areas, have ≤ 3 years of formal education and of low socio-economical level. And the majority of caregivers were suffering in (physical, psychological, social and spiritual) domains.

Recommendation: The study recommends to establish the psychological unit, Implementation of an educational program for those caregivers of children with CHD.