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Mental health and quality of life in deaf pupils

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Abstract

In the past decade, the living conditions of hearing impaired children have been changing due to new technologies and mainstreaming in schools. The majority of population-based studies in deaf pupils were conducted before these changes started to take place. The present study aimed to evaluate the current situation regarding aspects of mental health and, for the first time, quality of life in a representative sample of deaf pupils. The sample stems from a population of 145,000 pupils attending the first to ninth grades during the school years 2003–2005 in Upper Austria. From 186 children with bilateral hearing impairment of at least 40 dB registered at the centre for special education for children with sensory impairments, 99 with a performance IQ above 70 were included in the present study. Parents and teachers completed the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ), while parents and children were administered the inventory for the assessment of the quality of life in children and adolescents (ILC). Results indicated that deaf children scored significantly higher on the SDQ than their counterparts from normative samples according to both parent and teacher ratings. Differences were most marked with regard to conduct problems, emotional problems, and peer problems, and less marked for hyperactivity/inattention. While parents of deaf children had a generally positive view of their children’s quality of life, deaf children provided a more complex picture, stressing areas of dissatisfaction. Mental health and quality of life were found to be unrelated to the child’s degree of deafness.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Department of Health of the Government of Upper Austria and the “Fonds Gesundes Österreich”. The authors thank the parents, teachers and families for their participation in the study. Authors also thank Fritz Mattejat for providing the normative data on the ILC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut fuer Sinnes- und Sprachneurologie, Barmherzige Brueder, Linz, Austria

    Johannes Fellinger & Daniel Holzinger

  2. Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Heribert Sattel

  3. Dept. of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, P.O. Box 122120, 68072, Mannheim, Germany

    Manfred Laucht

  4. Dept. of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Manfred Laucht

Authors
  1. Johannes Fellinger
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  2. Daniel Holzinger
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  3. Heribert Sattel
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  4. Manfred Laucht
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Correspondence to Manfred Laucht.

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Fellinger, J., Holzinger, D., Sattel, H. et al. Mental health and quality of life in deaf pupils. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 17, 414–423 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-008-0683-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-008-0683-y

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