Quality of life of Caregivers of Children with Cerebral Palsy : A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract: Caregivers of children with cerebral palsy have to undergo various struggles and difficulties while parenting their children with CP, which is a long-term process. This prolonged caregiving can affect their quality of life and well being. This systematic literature review is aimed at finding the quality of life of caregivers of children with cerebral palsy. It also looks at the factors associated with it and scales used to measure quality of life. Using inclusion and exclusion criteria, seven articles were selected from two databases and two articles found through hand search for the reviewing process. The result showed lower quality of life in caregivers of children with cerebral palsy in various dimensions. Also, various factors associated with it was found under categories like caregivers’ factor, caregiving situation, demographic factor and so on. The factors were analyzed using a conceptual model of quality of life for family caregivers. Future research will help to gain more information on various other factors associated with quality of life as all the areas are not covered in the present researches and also the perspective of caregivers other than mothers since most researches focus on mothers as caregivers.