Prevalence of depression, anxiety, stress and their predictors in mothers of children with cerebral palsy in Sri Lanka, during first five years since diagnosis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Provision of care to a child diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP) with many disabilities is a challenge, leading to poor mental health among mothers as primary care givers. Psychological health in them would hinder productivity in and out the family, resulting poor quality of life, marital and family problems, issues at work place and negligence of care giving and ideal/ timely rehabilitation of the child. OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress and associated factors among mothers of children with Cerebral Palsy. METHODS: A sample of 200 mothers attending the rehabilitation clinic at Lady Ridgeway Hospital, Colombo with their children were recruited by applying systematic sampling. Pretested, CES-D scale was used to measure depression and DASS-21 to measure anxiety and stress. Analyzed with binary logistic regression. RESULTS: Depression, anxiety and stress were found to be commonly prevailing while nearly three quarters of participants were clinically depressed. Depression was associated with anxiety, perceived social support, type of CP, gross motor functional level and time since diagnosis and anxiety with perceived social support, perceived seizure control and gross motor functional level. Perceived social support and time since diagnosis were the factors associated with stress. CONCLUSIONS: Emphasis should be made on early screening, intervening and minimizing mother’s psychological ill health while managing the child with CP, in the process of child rehabilitation in view of preventing secondary complications.