Sibling

Objectives: Having a disabled child can have profound effects on the living conditions and the mental health of their family. Siblings of the children with disabilities have an important role in supporting them. Their physical, mental and emotional health may be at risk, therefore, their condition and living should be concerned and improved. The current study aimed to investigate the quality of life of these siblings in comparison with the siblings of normal children. Methods: This cross-sectional comparative study was carried out on 33 people who had one sibling with severe developmental disabilities aged 13 to 18 years. The control group consisted of 32 siblings of healthy children who were geographically and economically identical with the test group. The quality of life was measured by the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0 (PedsQL4). The data were analyzed by the Independent t test and Mann-Whitney test. Results: The Mean±SD age of the siblings with severe developmental disabilities was 15.64±2.06 years and the same score for the normal group was 15.30±2.23 years. The results showed that the siblings of children with developmental disabilities significantly have a poorer quality of life compared to the siblings of the healthy group (P<0.05). This significant difference was also found in the academic, emotional and physical scores of the quality of life scale, but no significant differences were found between the two groups in respect with the social function (P>0.05). Discussion: The current study showed that the quality of life of siblings of children with developmental disabilities is decreased. These results suggest the necessity to provide supportive and therapeutic programs for maintaining and improving the quality of life of these siblings and the whole family. Highlights ● Siblings of children with developmental disabilities significantly have a lower quality of life compared to the sib-lings of the healthy group. ● While the academic, emotional and physical scores of the quality of life are different between two groups, their social function is the same. Plain Language Summary Presence of a child with disabilities in a family can have unpleasant effects on the whole family. Caring a disabled child imposes a lot of financial and spiritual costs to the family. These conditions can create problems for other healthy children of the family and affect their quality of lives. Therefore, we decided to investigate the quality of life of healthy siblings of disabled children. As expected, the quality of life of these children is affected by the presence of a disabled child and is significantly lower than that of peer adolescents. A total of 33 healthy adolescents who had one sibling with severe developmental disabilities aged 13 to 18 years were participated in this study. In addition, 32 siblings of healthy children who were geographically and economically matched with this test group were selected as the control group. The quality of life of these two groups was measured by the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0 (PedsQL4) and the obtained data of two groups were compared with analytic statistics. The findings showed that the quality of life of siblings of children with developmental disabilities is lower. These results calls for providing supportive and therapeutic programs for maintaining and improving the quality of life of these siblings and the whole family.