Factors Affecting Mothers' Adherence to Home Exercise Programs Designed for Their Children with Cerebral Palsy

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Aug 30;19(17):10792. doi: 10.3390/ijerph191710792.

Abstract

Cerebral palsy is a common motor disorder that results in long-term impairment. The purpose of this study was to find out what factors influence Saudi mothers' compliance with their Children with Cerebral Palsy (C-CP) Home Exercise Program (HEP). A self-administered online questionnaire was used to perform this qualitative research study on a group of 113 mothers who had children with CP. The study included mothers with children from birth to 12 years old who had received a HEP prescription from a physiotherapist. The measuring instrument tool was a questionnaire with two sections: demographic characteristics and a questionnaire about the parents' adherence to the HEP. The questionnaire utilized in this study was subjected to a reliability analysis, and the derived Cronbach's alpha was found to be 0.814 for the questionnaire (which had 17 phrases). These results imply that the questionnaire is reliable. A total of 113 responses were received, with 4 incomplete responses being eliminated. The majority of mothers (66.1%) did not follow the HEP, according to the findings of this survey. The demographics of the mothers revealed that 20-25-year-old mothers were more adherent than the other age groups. The findings of this study demonstrated that the physical therapist's treatment of the mother influenced exercise compliance.

Keywords: cerebral palsy; home exercise program; mother’s compliance.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Cerebral Palsy* / therapy
  • Child
  • Exercise Therapy
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Mothers
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This research was funded by Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, under the Researchers Supporting Project number PNURSP2022R117.