Scoping review: quality of life of siblings of children who are deaf and hard of hearing, have a vision or motor impairment.
Carlijn Veldhorst, Anna Luijmes, Sabina Kef and 2 others
PMID 38035184WHAT IT FOUND
Siblings of children with hearing, vision, or motor impairments had mixed quality of life: some had higher depression and behavior problems, while others showed stronger prosocial behavior and close sibling relationships.
Key findings
01Siblings of children with mixed impairments had higher depression scores than control siblings.
02Siblings of children with motor impairment scored higher on internalizing behavior than controls and higher on externalizing behavior than their sibling with motor impairment.
03Siblings of children who are deaf or hard of hearing reported less impact when their sibling had good speech intelligibility.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only English peer-reviewed studies from 2002 to 2021 were included, so relevant non-English or older work was missed. The review included 11 studies with very different samples, impairments and outcome measures, so it could not draw one general conclusion. Quality of life was measured with 21 different tools, and the same tool sometimes measured different constructs. Some studies used parent reports rather than sibling reports, and parent feelings may bias the assessment. The studies were only from Europe and the United States, so findings may not apply to other cultures.
Declared interests
The paper states that this work was supported by Stichting ter Verbetering van het Lot der Blinden.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this review as proof that any sibling support programme improves quality of life. It maps mixed findings from 11 studies and does not test an intervention.