Corelationship Research On The Quality Of Life And Social Support Among Parents Of Children With Intellectual And Development Disabilities

The quality of life of parents of children with intellectual and development disabilities is not only related to their own survival and development,but also affects the rehabilitation and growth of children with mental disorders.So,It is of great significance to improve the quality of life of parents of children with intellectual and development disabilities! At present,the parents of children with intellectual and development disabilities are under great pressure in the aspects of physiology,psychology,environment and so on,and the existing supportive networks can not meet their needs,their quality of life faces enormous challenges.Therefore,Based on the analysis of previous literature,this study selected "World Health Organization Quality of Life(WHOQOL-BREF)" and "Social Support Questionnaire" to conduct a questionnaire survey on 552 parents of children with intellectual and development disabilities in China,the survey was carried out to investigate the level of quality of life and social support of parents,analyze influencing factors of parents' quality of life and social support and explore the relationship between quality of life and social support.Then,In order to make the study more complete,the author prepared an outline of the interview based on the questionnaire,and conducted in-depth interviews with eight parents of children with mental disorders to supplement the results of the questionnaire survey.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Parents of children with intellectual and development disabilities are not satisfied with their overall level of quality of life and health status,the scores of the four domains of the quality of life of parents ranked from high to low in the fields of physical health,psychological,social relationships,environment;Fathers of children with intellectual and development disabilities were significantly higher than their mothers in terms of overall perceptions of quality of life and health and the four domains of quality of life.The factors such as parents'age,education,working status,family monthly income,family form and children's gender,age,singleton status,type and level of disorder,age of diagnosis,emplacements will affect the quality of life of parents of children with intellectual and development disabilities.(2)The overall level of social support for parents of children with intellectual and development disabilities is at the lower-middle levels,Of the three types of support,the highest scores for emotional support,followed by instrumental support,the lowest scores for informative support;Fathers of children with intellectual and development disabilities score significantly higher than their mothers in the terms of instrumental support.The factors such as parents' age,education,working status,family monthly income,family form and children's age,type and level of disorder,emplacements will affect the level of social support of parents will affect the quality of life of parents of children with intellectual and development disabilities.(3)The quality of life of parents of children with intellectual and development disabilities was positively correlated with their social support;Under the condition of control the influence of demographic variables,parents' social support block still can effectively explain the parents in the aspects of quality of life of the variance,Among the social support,emotional support and instrumental support have reached a significant level of explanatory power on quality of life,but the explanatory power of this variable has not reached a significant level.(4)Through interviews,we further learned that:In the domain of physical health,the parents' quality of life is greatly affected by the emotional and instrumental support from family members;in the psychological domain,parents' quality of life is influenced by the emotional behavior of children and by the emotional and instrumental support come from family members and parental organizations;in the domain of social relationship,parents' family relations and friendships are under the negative influence,parents urgently need professional psychological interventions(emotional support)and respite care(instrumental support);in the domain of environment,parents still faced many problem,and the support provided by the government,community,schools still needs to be improved.The main problems faced by parents include:the placement of older children with mental disorders is still pending;the level of rehabilitation agencies is not aligned,community service is not perfect,Inclusive education is difficult,social environment is full of challenges.According to the results of this study,the author proposes the following suggestions in order to provide reference for the formulation of relevant policies in the future:As a whole,it should strengthen the monitoring and evaluation of the family of children with mental disorders and-increase the pertinence of social support.Specifically,we can improve the quality of life of parents by improving the level of different types of social support.In the aspect of emotional support,we should pay more attention to the intervention of the family,strengthen the social propaganda and attach importance to the role of the parent organization.In terms of instrumental support,we should enrich the relevant services of the community and accelerate the construction of inclusive education environment.We should improve the relevant guarantee system and give full play to the power of social organizations.In the aspect of information support,we should expand the source of information support and improve the quality of information support.