Assessing the Quality of Life of Parents of Children With Disabilities Using WHOQoL BREF During COVID-19 Pandemic.

Subgroup analysis by disability type could not be performed due to a disproportionately large sample of parents with children with autism spectrum disorder, limiting understanding of how different disabilities affect parental quality of life. The study used a cross-sectional design during the COVID-19 pandemic, making it difficult to determine whether lower quality of life scores were due to caregiving burden, pandemic-related stressors, or both. Participants were recruited from a single hospital outpatient department in Pakistan, limiting generalizability to other cultural contexts or healthcare settings. The study did not measure child severity or functional impairment, which are known factors affecting caregiver burden. Regression models showed low explanatory power (R-squared values ranging from 0.087 to 0.191), indicating many factors influencing parental quality of life were not captured by the sociodemographic variables measured.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Do not interpret the lack of significant difference in psychological health scores as evidence that parents of children with disabilities are psychologically resilient or unaffected. The absence of statistical significance does not rule out clinical importance, and both groups had low overall quality of life scores, suggesting pandemic stressors may have affected psychological wellbeing across all parents regardless of child disability status.