title: Health related quality of life in parents of children with speech and hearing impairment.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Hearing impairment and specific language disorder are two entities that seriously affect language acquisition in children and reduce their communication skills. These children require specific treatment and higher levels of care than healthy children. Their language abilities also strongly influence parent-child interactions. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of the parents of hearing-impaired children and the parents of children with speech difficulties (specific language disorder).
  
  
  METHODS
  Our study subjects included 349 parents (182 mothers and 167 fathers) of preschool-aged children with receptive expressive language disorder and 131 parents (71 mothers and 60 fathers) of children with severe hearing impairment. A control group was composed of 146 parents (82 mothers and 64 fathers) of healthy children of the same age. HRQOL was assessed using the SF-36 questionnaire.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For all groups of parents, the mothers had poorer scores compared with the fathers, but large differences were apparent depending on the child's impairment. In the control group, the scores of the mothers were significantly lower than the fathers' scores in only two (of eight) health domains. In contrast, the scores were lower in three domains for the mothers of speech-impaired children and in six domains for the mothers of hearing-impaired children, representing the greatest difference between the parents. When compared with the control group, both the mothers and fathers of speech-impaired children scored significantly worse in five health domains. Fathers of hearing-impaired children scored significantly worse than controls in three health domains. The lowest scores, indicating the poorest HRQOL, were observed for mothers of hearing-impaired children, who obtained significantly lower scores than the control mothers in all health domains except the emotional role.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The parents of preschool-aged speech-and hearing-impaired children experience poorer HRQOL than parents of healthy children of the same age. Mothers of hearing-impaired children are especially affected, demonstrating a negative impact in almost all health domains.
authors.affiliation: Policlinics for Rehabilitation of Hearing and Speech SUVAG, Ljudevita Posavskog 10, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. Electronic address: iaras@suvag.hr.
authors.forename: Ivana
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Aras
authors.affiliation: Croatian National Institute of Public Health, Rockefellerova 7, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Ranko
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stevanović
authors.affiliation: Policlinics for Rehabilitation of Hearing and Speech SUVAG, Ljudevita Posavskog 10, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Sanja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vlahović
authors.affiliation: General Hospital Virovitica, Ljudevita Gaja 22, 33000 Virovitica, Croatia.
authors.forename: Siniša
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stevanović
authors.affiliation: Medical School University of Rijeka, Braće Branchetta 20, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia.
authors.forename: Branko
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kolarić
authors.affiliation: Policlinics for Rehabilitation of Hearing and Speech SUVAG, Ljudevita Posavskog 10, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Ljiljana
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kondić
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Health related quality of life; Hearing impairment; Parents; SF-36; Speech impairment