Comparative survey of parenting role tasks in families with cerebral palsy child & healthy child

Children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) bring about pressures on the families. As family function is noticeably dependent on all member's health condition, which is affected by proper implementation of their roles, specially parents’, in the present survey, decision was made to study parenting role tasks in families with CP children and those with normal children to determinate possible influence of CP children on their fathers’ and mothers’ tasks.
In the current case-control study, following non-probability sampling, 47 CP and 47 normal children’s parents responded to parenting role tasks questionnaire as well as a demographic questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS, version 18, running independent and paired t tests.
The results showed that the task scores for mothers with CP chilren (p≤0/02), except for “importance”, and task scores for fathers with CP chilren in all items (p≤0/005) were lower than those of the parents with normal children. Also, tasks scores for healthy children’s mothers, except for “leisure time” and “importance” items, in comparison with their husbands (p≤0/004), and task scores for mothers with CP, except for “leisure time” in comparison with their husbands (p Parents of children with CP face a huge number of problems in their role in all domains. The only factor which is constant betweeh these mothers and those of healthy children is the “importance” given to their tasks. Mothers are more involved in parenting roles than fathers; therapists who are working with parents of CP children should pay attention to these parent’s problems, while they follow the clients treatment program and try to keep balance in parenting tasks.