Examination of life satisfaction, burnout and loneliness levels of mothers who have children with mental deficiency

This study's aim is to reveal the relationship between life satisfaction, burnout and loneliness levels of mothers who have children with mental deficiency. Besides, the effects of variables such as mothers' ages, marital status, education levels and occupations on burnout, life satisfaction and loneliness are examined. Mothers who have specially educated children with mental deficiency and live in Istanbul, Umraniye are participated to the research. Also, according to identify socio-demographic characteristics of the participants, Personal Information Form and to evaluate variables, Maslach Burnout Syndrome Scale, Life Satisfaction Scale and Loneliness Scale are applied by researcher. Mann Whitney- U, and Kruskal Wallis & Spearman Correlation Tests are used in the analysis of data. When the socio-demographic characteristics analyzed, it is found out that as mother's age increase, their burnout syndrome levels increase; mothers who have three and more children have higher levels of burnout levels than mothers with one child, mothers who do not have problems in the family because of her child's special condition have higher life satisfaction than mothers who have a problem in the family due to this case, mothers who do not have psychological support because of her child's special condition have higher life satisfaction than mothers who do have a support. There was no meaningful results for socio-demographic features that take a part in the research, such as mothers' marital status, education level or occupation. In addition, it is seen that as mothers' life satisfaction levels increase, their burnout levels decrease. In the discussion section, at the end of the research, suggestions for researchers, psychological consultants working on this field had been proposed on research findings.