Investigation of the relationship between physical activity level caregiver burden - efficiency and depression in the mother of disabled children

Objective: To investigate the relationship between physical activity level, caregiver burden, self-efficacy and depression in mothers with disabled children. Materials and Methods: A total of 121 mothers with a disabled child with a standardized Mini Mental Test score ≥24 were included in the study. Physical activity level was evaluated with "International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), caregiving burden" Caregiver Burden Scale (CBS), Parental Self Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ), and depression was assessed with "Beck Depression Scale"(BDS). Findings: The mean 80,2% are married and 84.3% are housewives age of the mothers was 38.17±7.94 years and the mean body mass index was 25.6±4.40 kg/m². According to IPAQ scores, 57.8% of the mothers had low, 35.5% had moderate and 6.6% had high physical activity levels. When the mothers were divided into two groups according to their activity levels as low and medium + high, no significant difference was found between the PSEQ, CBS and BDS scores. There was a negative weakness level correlation (r= -0.297, p =0.001) between the PSEQ score (mean 85.07±14.12) and the CBS score (mean 41.57±11.71). There was a positive high level correlation (r=0.601, p <0.001) between the CBS and BDS (mean 12.28±8.38) score. There was positive weakness level correlation (r=-0.183, p=0.045) between IPAQ (mean 1000.08±1242.73) score and PSEQ score. Conclusion: Mothers with disabled children have low physical activity levels. There was relationship between activity level and parental self-efficacy and there was no relationship between depression and caregiver burden. While the stress experienced by mothers with high self-efficacy is lower, the low self-efficacy and high care-giving burden are associated with the mother's depression levels . We think that increasing the physical activity levels of mothers with disabled children will decrease their depression level and improve their self-efficacy and reduce the stress experienced by care-giving. Keywords: Mother, Physical Activity, Children with Disabilities, Self-Effecacy