Parental compliance with rehabilitation programs of disabled children in outpatient clinics of Birjand city (2009)

About 10% of the world's population is affected by disabilities one third of which are children. Parental compliance with children's rehabilitation programs have important role in overall effectiveness of therapies. The purpose of this study was to determine the rate of parental compliance of disabled children who attended outpatient rehabilitation clinics in Birjand city. In this cross-sectional descriptive study، data was collected from parents of 92 disabled children who were attending outpatient rehabilitation clinics (occupational therapy، speech therapy and physiotherapy) in Birjand city by interview and using a semi structured questionnaire. The test-retest reliability and validity of which were 0. 72 and 0. 94، respectively. Parental compliance with regular attending to therapy sessions، doing exercises at home، providing rehabilitation equipments and providing educational materials were assessed. SPSS V. 16 software was used for analysis of data. About 48. 8% (44 of 92 parents) were complied with regular attending to sessions (i. e. they took part in 90% or more of therapy sessions) and 70% (42 of 60 parents) were complied with performing exercises for children at home، (i. e. they had performed 50% or more of exercises). About 77% (47 of 61 parents) were complied with providing rehabilitation equipments and finally 72. 7% (16 of 22 parents) were complied with providing educational materials facilitating rehabilitation (i. e. they had provided 90% or more of recommended items). It seems imperative to make every effort to find barriers of parental compliance with disabled children's rehabilitation programs and help parents to overcome those barriers.