Prevalência de transtornos mentais em pais de crianças com paralisia cerebral: revisão sistemática

Abstract

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a non-progressive, non-curable condition that affects the developing nervous system and can leave severe sequelae. The treatment should be directed to the amplification of the functionality in the motor, perceptual and communicative aspects, prevention of deformities and improvement of the quality of life. The cost of treatment and the need for additional care lead to interference on the quality of life of caregivers, especially parents, making them more vulnerable to mental disorders (MD). Among the most common mental disorders are mood disorders, anxiety disorders and substance-related disorders. The appearance of many of them may be associated with socio-emotional factors such as living with a chronic patient. The main objective of this study is to estimate the prevalence of mental disorders in parents of children with cerebral palsy. This is a Systematic Review (SR) that follows the Precepted Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P), through the search for observational studies determining the prevalence of depression, anxiety and substance abuse in Parents of individuals with CP. The sources of information used for the present study were: PubMed, SciELO, LILACS, Cochrane Library, Clinical Trials and Virtual Health Library (VHL), in which 16 articles were selected. Data extracted for analysis were divided into three categories: data on the study, data on subjects with PC and data on the parents. Sixteen studies were included, which, as a whole, addressed the families of 1570 children with cerebral palsy. All studies included volunteer parents of whom 95% were women. It is concluded that the theme is still little studied. CP is related to the higher prevalence of depression and anxiety in parents. Mothers seem to be more affected than fathers. Some data indicate that factors such as child's degree of functionality and socioeconomic level may influence the frequency of mental disorders in parents. However, the studies have heterogeneous samples and applied different criteria for characterization of the population and it are not possible to perform meta-analysis.