Depression in Parents of Children with Cerebral Palsy in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The aim of the research is to examine depression in parents of children with cerebral palsy, with hypothesis to have more depressive symptom among mothers of children with cerebral palsy. The sample of examinees (between 23 and 62 age) was used in this research. The first subsample of examinees (N=23) was made of mothers (average 33±5.83) of children with cerebral palsy. The second subsample of examinees (N=12) was made of fathers of children with cerebral palsy (average 38±9.8). The third subsample of examinees (N=16) represented the control group, and it was made of mothers of children without disorders (average 38±6.57). For the purpose of quantitative measurement of depression, the Zung self-evaluated method for depression was applied. All data research were processed by parametric and nonparametric statistics. The frequencies and percents were also calculated, and Kruskal-Valis single-factor analysis of variants was applied for checking the hypothesis. According to the results of this research, it was concluded that there was no statistically significant difference in the evaluation of depression between mothers and fathers of children with cerebral palsy, as well as there is no statistically significant difference in relation to mothers of children without disorder