Family burden and quality of life assesment in families whose children and adolescents evaluated mentally and borderline i̇ntellectual functioning

This research aims to investigate family burden and quality of life in families who have mentally handicapped children and borderline intellectual functioning children the age between 6-16. Socio-demografic characteristics, psychological support and psychiatric medicine need in families, income support and home care support from goverment have also been evaluated in this study. WISC-R test has been applied to the children of aged 6-16 to verify the diagnosis of mental handicap. Family Burden Evaluation Scale, WHOQOL-BREF and Socio- demografic form have been applied to accompanying family members. In this study, 131 children, attented to the Bülent Ecevit University Health Practise and Research Center, psychiatric department of children and adolescents, requested a mental evaluation test (WISC-R) and IQ score between 35-79 and their mothers were included. The mothers who have mentally handicapped children were the age between 24-56. In those, 93.1% were married and 69.5% were lived in a nuclear family. Most of the mothers were housewife and the average montly income of the families were 1237,44±971,39 TL. In those, 25.2% were having psychological support and 26.7% were taking psychiatric medicine. In this study, quality of life were in mid-scale in mothers who have an mental handicapped children. The lowest score has been detected in "environmental" relation to social oppression where the highest score has been detected in "physical domain". From the results obtain from family burden evaluation data, the most important concern of the mothers were that their mentally handicapped children would never be self-sufficient and they would fall behind from their pers. Key Words: Family Burden, Mental Retardation, Quality of Life, Mental Handicapped, Borderline Intellectual Functioning.