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The Sexual Quality of Life of Mothers and Their Children with Disabilities: General Health Status and Depression

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Abstract

The present study was conducted to determine the relationship between the sexual quality of life of mothers giving care to their children with disabilities and their general health status and depression. The sample of this descriptive study comprised 100 mothers giving care to their children. Of the children with disabilities, 52% had hearing impairment, 35% had physical impairment, 13% had mental impairment. The mothers giving care to their children with disabilities were at risk for mental health, suffered mild depression symptoms, and did not have a good sexual quality of life. The differences between the mean scores the participants obtained from the General Health Questionnaire-28, Beck Depression Inventory and Sexual Quality of Life-Female (SQOL-F) Questionnaire in terms of their socio-demographic and disability characteristics were not statistically significant (p > 0.05). As the mental health risk of the mothers who cared for a person with a disability increased, so did their being at risk for depression, which negatively affected the quality of their sexual life.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Sivas Cumhuriyet University, 58140, Sivas, Turkey

    Nilufer Tugut

  2. Department of Nursing, Susehri Health High School, Sivas Cumhuriyet University, 58140, Sivas, Turkey

    Birnur Yesildag Celik & Ayse Yılmaz

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  1. Nilufer Tugut
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  2. Birnur Yesildag Celik
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  3. Ayse Yılmaz
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Correspondence to Nilufer Tugut.

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Ethical Approval

The study was carried out in accordance with the principles of Helsinki declaration. Ethical approval and written permission were obtained from the Cumhuriyet University Non-interventional Clinical Research Ethics Committee (dated and numbered 2017-03/19) and the Rehabilitation Center respectively. The participating mothers were informed about the purpose of the study and were told that the data obtained would only be used within the scope of the present study, that their credentials would be kept confidential and would not be disclosed to third parties, and that they had the right to withdraw from the study at any time. Then, after the participants, those who gave their verbal and written consent indicating that they volunteered to participate in the study, the data collection tools were filled in as defined in the materials and methods section.

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Tugut, N., Yesildag Celik, B. & Yılmaz, A. The Sexual Quality of Life of Mothers and Their Children with Disabilities: General Health Status and Depression. Sex Disabil 39, 167–179 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11195-020-09652-1

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