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Quality of Life in Adolescents with a Disability and Their Parents: The Mediating Role of Social Support and Resilience

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to test whether the effect of the pile-up of demands associated with a disability on quality of life, was mediated by resilience, quantity and quality of social support for adolescents with a disability and their parents. One hundred and thirty two parents, 90 mothers and 42 fathers and 111 adolescents, aged between 16 and 24 years completed measures of the pile-up of demands, social support, resilience and quality of life. Structural equation modeling with the bootstrap resampling method showed that the impact of the disability of their son/daughter on the quality of life of the parents was fully mediated through the parents’ resilience and the quantity of social support and that resilience, however only partly, mediates the effect of adaptive skills on the quality of life of the adolescents with a disability. Limitations of the study and clinical implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Concerning data validity, family members acting as proxy for the adolescent with a disability only completed the objectively identifiable measures.

  2. This difference in internal consistency would contraindicate comparison of the results of objective and subjective QoL. However, as we make no such comparison in terms of goodness of fit or strength of correlations, this has no implications for our analyses.

  3. Hierarchical regression analyses were carried out on the unimputed data; this did not generate significantly different results.

  4. Parents’ QoL proved to be independent of adolescents’ QoL, r = −.01 for subjective QoL and r = .19 for objective QoL.

  5. In all model tests the mediating variables were allowed to correlate. However, as they are not important for the hypotheses, the estimated correlation coefficients are not represented in the figures in order not to clutter them.

  6. In contrast to Bollen (1989, p.116), it is impossible to evaluate the coefficient of determinancy due to the multiple imputation technique.

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Acknowledgments

The study was commissioned, financed and steered by the Ministry of the Flemish Community (Department of Economics, Science and Innovation; Department of Welfare, Public Health and Family). The work was performed by the first author in commision of the Centre of Expertise for Welfare, Public Health and Family. This is a consortium of researchers of the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U. Leuven), Ghent University.

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  1. Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, H. Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Femke Migerode, Ann Buysse & Ruben Brondeel

  2. Department of Parenting and Special Education, Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Bea Maes

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  1. Femke Migerode
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  2. Bea Maes
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Correspondence to Femke Migerode.

Appendix: Addaptive skills scale as constructed for this study

Appendix: Addaptive skills scale as constructed for this study

Respond for every activity below how much help the adolescent needs to complete this activity succesful.

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Migerode, F., Maes, B., Buysse, A. et al. Quality of Life in Adolescents with a Disability and Their Parents: The Mediating Role of Social Support and Resilience. J Dev Phys Disabil 24, 487–503 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-012-9285-1

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