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

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?

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.