The relationship of perceived social support with self-care and marital satisfaction in mothers of children with epilepsy

Background
Mothers caring for children with epilepsy are commonly exposed to feelings such as guilt, failure, sadness, isolation and lack of interest in interaction with others.

Objectives
The present study aims to examine the relationship between perceived social support and self-care and marital satisfaction in mothers of children with epilepsy in one hospital in Shiraz, Iran.

Material and methods
In this descriptive correlational study, the sample included 98 mothers caring for children with epilepsy admitted to Namazi Hospital. For data collection, four questionnaires were used including demographics, perceived social support, self-care and marital satisfaction. After completion of the questionnaires, the data was analysed using SPSS Statistics 21.0. A significance level of 0.05 was considered in the study.

Results
The mothers had an average perceived social support score of 30.48 ± 7.04. The average self-care score of the mothers of epileptic children was 87.45 ± 14.41. Concerning marital satisfaction, the mothers had an average score of 118.93 ± 19.6. The research findings indicated a positive and significant correlation between perceived social support and self-care in the mothers. In other words, the self-care scores were increased with an increase in the perceived social support score (r = 0.332; p = 0.001). Furthermore, a positive and significant correlation was also found between perceived social support and marital satisfaction, i.e. with an increase in the perceived social support score, the marital satisfaction scores of the mothers also increased (r = 0.201; p = 0.047).

Conclusions
The results of the current study indicated that perceived social support has a positive relationship with self-care and marital satisfaction in mothers. Therefore, the provision of social support by the family, friends and society will result in better self-care and higher marital satisfaction in mothers caring for children with epilepsy, which in turn can improve the quality of the care provided to these children by their mothers.