Resilience, life satisfaction, care burden and social support of mothers with a child with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia: a comparative study

Background: The study aimed to make comparison between the resilience, life satisfaction, care burden and social support of mothers with a child with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and those with a healthy child. Methods: The study was carried out using the comparative and descriptive methods, and the study group included mothers with ALL children hospitalised in the Paediatric Haematology Clinic of a university hospital (n = 51) and those with healthy children who applied to a family health centre (n = 53). While collecting the data, Personal Information Form, Resilience Scale for Adults, Life Satisfaction Scale, Zarit Care Burden Scale and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support Scale were used. The data were statistically analysed using the SPSS program, percentages, mean scores, standard deviations, Mann-Whitney U test and pearson correlation. For the comparison of the personal information about the mothers with ALL children and about those with healthy children, chi-square or student t test for independent groups depending on the data set was used. Results: When the mothers with ALL children were compared with those with healthy children, it was found that the methods with ALL children had statistically lower mean scores for life satisfaction (13.92 ± 6.26, p < 0.001) and resilience (17.90 ± 7.09, p < 0.001) and statistically higher mean scores for care burden (42.23 ± 16.54, p < 0.05). Conclusions: In this study, when the mothers of ALL children were compared with those of healthy children, it was found that the former had lower levels of resilience and life satisfaction and higher levels of care burden.