Quality of life among caregivers of children with disabilities attending rehabilitation centre in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor

Quality of life (QoL) is an awareness of an individual in their situation in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards, and concerns. Caregivers of children with disabilities seem to display a higher burden and impaired Quality of Life (QOL). Evaluating QOL and sources of stress among caregivers of children with disabilities is an essential for interventions focused on rehabilitation. An 82 caregivers of persons with a disability registered under Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) Centres based in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor were selected for the study. Self- administered questionnaires by using WHOQOL-BREF was used to assess the quality of life of caregivers. The mean age of the caregivers was found to be 42.45 years, with 47 (57.3%) females and 35 (42.7%) males. The mean Quality of Life of these caregivers was 74.60. The physical domain was significantly associated with education, income, occupation, and age; the psychological domain was associated with education, race, income, and age, while the environmental domain was associated with relation to caregiver education, race, income, age, and occupation. Social domain was the most affected; marital status (p-value=0.01), education (p-value=0.01), race, race (p-value=0.03), relationship with the children (p-value=0.01), income (p-value=0.01) and occupation (p-value=0.03). Income was observed to affect all the domains, and caring for the disabilities' children with health problems were the major sources of stress to the caregivers. Quality of Life among the caregivers was obviously influenced by various factors that necessity to be addressed.  Specific supports and interventions should be highlighted to benefit the caregivers to ensure the betterment of care for children with disabilities.