A Comparison of Time Use Patterns and Self-Efficacy Between Mothers of Children With Cerebral Palsy and Mothers of Typically Developing Children

Comparing time use patterns and self-efficacy in two groups of mothers, including mothers of children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and mothers of children with typical development, is the main objective of this study.

This study was carried out in 2017 in Arak, Iran, on 200 mothers. Multiple sources of the evaluation, including Mothers’ Time Use Questionnaire and Sherer General Self-efficacy Questionnaire, were used. SPSS v. 22 software was used to analyze the data.

The Mean±SD age of children was 4.64±1.46 years in the group of children with CP and 4.64±1.47 in the group of children with typical development. Significant differences were found between groups in the amount of time spent in various occupations, including self-care, childcare and household, leisure, rest/sleep, and work. Mothers of children with CP significantly spent a bigger proportion of time on “rest/sleep” and “childcare and household” areas (P<0.001). However, mothers of children with typical development spent significantly more time in “Self-care” (P=0.01), “Leisure” (P<0.001), and “Work” (P<0.001) areas. Also, significant differences were found between groups in the level of satisfaction.

Lower total score of the time use questionnaire in the group of mothers of children with CP might be because of the nature of limitations and the negative burden of this type of disease in terms of socio-cultural and fewer health system services.