ORIGINAL ARTICLE e-ISSN: 2349-0659 p-ISSN; 2350-0964
Assessment of Quality of Life of Children with Cerebral Palsy
Latka Gulyani
1
*, Avnika Singh
2
, K. Vadivelan
3
A BSTRACT
Background: Children with cerebral palsy (CP) may have individual experiences and problems that restrict the participation in daily life
activities. Quality of life (QOL) in children with CP needs to be quantifed by CP-specifc questionnaire. CP-QOL questionnaire is being used
for this purpose. Objective: The aim of the study was to study the QOL of children with CP as asked by the caregivers of such children in
south Indian population. Methodology: A cross-sectional and observational study including 121 participants (Parents/caregivers of children)
with CP with age of 4–12 years was asked to complete the CPQOL questionnaire. The CPQOL questionnaire for primary caregivers is used to
assess the QOL of children with CP. The study was conducted at the physiotherapy OPD of SRM Hospital, Kattankulathur and was completed
after a period of 15 months started from May 2019 till August 2020. Result: The mean QOL score of 37.67 ± 4.57 was calculated using SPSS.
Conclusion: The QOL of children with CP was compromised and the CP-QOL can be used to assess the QOL in children with CP.
Keywords: Cerebral palsy, CPQOL, Primary caregivers, Quality of life
Asian Pac. J. Health Sci., (2022); DOI: 10.21276/apjhs.2022.9.4.07
©2022 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
I NTRODUCTION
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of condition that is characterized by
chronic disorder of movement or postures; it is cortical in origin,
manifests itself early in life, and is not the outcome of progressive
disease which is collectively defned as “Developmental
Disabilities.” CP is a syndrome with combination of motor, sensory,
intellectual, language, perceptual, and behavioral problems.
CP has a prevalence of 3/1000 live births. Worldwide CP has the
incidence of one in 500 births. The impact of such children in the
families is intense which greatly afects the quality of life (QOL)
of such children. QOL of children with CP can be assessed using
a validated tool such as CP-QOL questionnaire which helps in
addressing the several domains of life both by children themselves
and by the caregivers also. CP-QOL is a CP specifed questionnaire
designed in accordance with International Classifcation of
Function and defnition of QOL by the World Health Organization
(Waters et al., 2007).
[1]
CP-QOL basically assesses the well-being of
children with CP, rather than ill-being (Waters et al., 2007).
[1]
The
common challenge faced by researchers in the feld of cerebral
palsy is the inability of most children to communicate themselves
thus, the need to rely on the caregiver for information regarding
the quality of life.
[2]
There are other QOL questionnaires for children such as Kid-
KINDL, HRQOL
[3]
and CHQ. For CP-QOL, there are two versions
available, one for the children and the other for the primary
caregivers. The validity and reliability have already been established
in diferent countries using the questionnaire in several languages
besides the English language.
[4]
The primary caregiver version for
ages 4–12-years-old has seven domains such as social well-being
and acceptance, functioning, physical health, pain and impact of
disability, participation, emotional well-being, access to services,
and family health. The other version for self-report by children is
available for children with ages 9–12 years old.
[4]
The present study provides insight on the quality of care
received by children with CP in Southern geographical areas of
India. As the geographical location can play a key role in type of
care and facilities provided to these children and the extent to
which facilities are available for such children in the community to
look at a perspective for the health-care providers.
1
Department of Neurological Physiotherapy, Jyotirao Phule Subharti
College of Physiotherapy, Swami Vivekanand Subharti University,
Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India
2
Department of Cardiopulmonary Physiotherapy, Jyotirao Phule
Subharti College of Physiotherapy Swami Vivekanand Subharti
University, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India
3
Department of Physiotherapy, SRM College of Physiotherapy, SRMIST,
Kattankulathur, Tamil Nadu, India
Corresponding Author: Dr. Latika Gulyani, Department of Neurological
Physiotherapy, Jyotirao Phule Subharti College of Physiotherapy,
Swami Vivekanand Subharti University, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Mobile: +919568919672. e-mail: latikagulyani94@gmail.com
How to cite this article: Gulyani L, Singh A, Vadivelan K. Assessment of
Quality of Life of Children with Cerebral Palsy. Asian Pac. J. Health Sci.,
2022;9(4):32-34.
Source of support: Nil
Conficts of interest: None.
Received: 01/02/2022 Revised: 19/03/2022 Accepted: 17/04/2022
A similar type of study was done in the Northern region of
India in 2017 in 50 participants whose fndings slightly varied from
this study as the questionnaire was used in the local language of
that area using the same questionnaire. The objective of this study
was to assess the QOL and care received by the children with CP
from their primary caregivers.
M ATERIALS AND M ETHODS
A convenient sampling method was adopted to select 121
primary caregivers of children with CP with ages 4–12 years that
were recruited as participants for this study. The sample size was
calculated by the survey sample size calculator on the basis of
prevalence of CP. The selection criterion was that the participants
should be the primary caregiver of these children who at least
spends 18 h with the child in a day. The study was conducted at
Physiotherapy OPD, SRM Hospital, Kattankulathur. The child of
these participants (primary caregivers) should be between the
ages of 4 and 12 years. The participants themselves flled the