Abstract:
Around the world, more than eight million girls and boys grow up for long periods of their lives not in their own families but in residential institutions. Children are placed in residential institutions because they live in harsh social conditions due to death of one or both parents, parent's illness, adverse economic circumstances, unknown parenthood, cracked family, parent's imprisonment and family inability to provide proper care. Quality of life concerns the satisfaction of individual's needs and demands, which are necessary for his satisfaction with life. Hence, this study was conducted to identify the quality of life among children deprived of family care in residential institutions in El-Beheira governorate. A descriptive research design was used to conduct this study. It had been carried out in all 10 residential institutions for care of children deprived of family care affiliated to the Ministry of Solidarity and Social Justice in El-Beheira governorate, Egypt. The present study subjects included all residents, boys and girls in the previously mentioned residential institutions aged from 6 to17 years and free from any mental or physical disabilities. They were 214 children (92 males and 122 females).Three tools were used in this study (quality of life among children deprived from family care in residential institutions in El-Beheira governorate). Tool I: Residential children's demographic characteristics. Tool II: KINDL R quality of life questionnaire. Tool III: Satisfaction with life scale (SWLS). Approvals were obtained for conducting the study at the specified settings. The study was conducted in a period of4 months (from May to September 2016). Data was collected by the researcher then appropriate descriptive and analytical statistics were carried out such as arithmetic mean, standard deviation, Chi square and Monte Carlo tests of significance.The main findings obtained from the study revealed that more than half (57.0%) of the institutionalized children were females compared to 43.0% were males. More than one third (36.9%) of them aged from 6 to 12 years, while 63.1% aged from 12 to 17 years with a mean of 13.41 ± 3.29.More than one third (37.9%) of the studied children were in primary education, almost two fifths (39.7%) in preparatory education, and 22.4% in secondary education.Almost two thirds (64%) of the children lived in institutions in urban areas.Regarding their quality of life , more than half (57%) of the studied children had fair QOL, while 41.1% of them had good QOL, and few percent (1.9%) of them had poor QOL. Almost one quarter (25.7%) of the studied children were dissatisfied with their life, while 8.9% of them were extremely dissatisfied with their life a mean of 22.53± 8.80.Based upon the results of the current study, it could be concluded that more than half of the institutionalized children in El-Beheira governorate had fair quality of life and more than one third of them were dissatisfied with their life. In light of the present study findings, it is recommended to assign trained health care providers to provide continuous care for the institutionalized children and their caregivers and make referral when needed.
