ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Intellectual Disabilities
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1611074
This article is part of the Research TopicSpeech Perception and Language Development in Individuals with Special Educational NeedsView all 3 articles
Quality of life of mothers of children with Down Syndrome: A study comparing those with and without hearing loss
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Health Communication Sciences, College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- 2Department of Health Sciences, College of Health and rehabilitation sciences, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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Background: Down syndrome is a genetic disorder present from birth, leading to various physical and cognitive challenges. Some children with Down syndrome also experience hearing loss. The combined impact of raising a child with Down syndrome and hearing loss can affect the quality of life (QoL) of mothers. The aim of this study was to examine the differences in QoL between mothers of children with Down syndrome who have hearing loss and those without hearing loss. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 103 mothers of children with Down syndrome. Data were collected using the Arabic version of the WHOQOL-BREF, which assesses the QoL across four domains, including physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environment, with scores ranging from 0-100. Results: In the studied sample, 16.5% of mothers reported that their child had hearing loss. The mean QoL scores for the total sample were 65.8±18.6 in physical health, 72.6±17.5 in psychological health, 65.6±13.7 in social relationships, and 68.7 ±16.8 in environment. There were no significant differences in QoL scores across any domain between mothers of children with and without hearing loss (p > 0.05). Mothers' perceptions of their overall QoL and health were high and similar between both groups. Conclusion: Most mothers in this study reported satisfactory QoL. While HL does not seem to drastically affect overall QoL across various domains, it is evident that social challenges persist
Keywords: Down Syndrome, Hearing Loss, Quality of Life, Mothers, Children
Received: 17 Apr 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Alkahtani, Bakry, Al Hawi, Alshehri and ELBELTAGY. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: REEM ELBELTAGY, Department of Health Communication Sciences, College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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