INTRODUCTION: The functional dependency of children with cerebral palsy (CP) must promote a physical and emotional stress in your parents. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study has been to evaluate life quality of mothers of teenagers and children, victims of CP assisted in Physiotherapy Clinics of the Private Enterprise in Caruaru City, PE, Brazil, and identify possible alterations on their behavior, according to the level of motor difficulty and to the age of their children and teenagers. METHODOLOGY: 31 mothers participated of this study responding to WHOCOL-Bref questionnaire. It was used the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) test to evaluate the level of children's and teenagers' gross motor function. RESULTS: Our descriptive analysis of data verified that most of the sample presented severe level of deficiency and age between 2-5 years. At linking the grade of motor affectation with the questionnaire dominium, it was observed that 60% of the mothers whose kids presented a light affectation, there was a negative perception of physical dominium. When the motor harm was soft, the perception of maternal life quality was negative in 55.5%. And in mothers whose children have severe affectation, we observed a positive perception of the physical (58.8%) and psychological (76.3%) dominium, and a negative one at social relations and environment dominium (52.6%). CONCLUSION: The perception of quality of life on mothers of children and teenagers victims of CP in Caruaru is really affected, especially in relation to the aspects which compose environment and social relations.
Cerebral palsy; Life quality; Children; Mothers
