ABSTRACT

Aim: This study was conducted to determine and compare sleep

habits and life qualities of mildly intellectually disabled children

who did or not perform regular physical activity.

Methods: The study, which is a descriptive and comparative

study, was completed at Kütahya Çinikent Special Education

Primary and Secondary Schools and special sports clubs with 126

children’s their care-givers between February and June 2017.

The data were collected by using the Information Form, CSHQ

and KIDSCREEN-27 and analyzed by using the SPSS package

program.

Results: The children with regular physical activity had lower

CSHQ total scores than the non-physical ones and KIDSCREEN-

27 total scores, physical activities and health, general mood and

your child’s feeling, family and your child’s free time, school and

learning sub-dimension averages of these children were found

higher. Differences between the two groups with respect to

these scores were found significant. It was found that the

children who did not have regular physical activity with sleep

problem had a lower score in KIDSCREEN-27 and its subscales.

Differences between the two groups with respect to general

mood and your child’s feeling, friends, school and learning subdimension

averages were also found statistically significant

(p<0.05).

Conclusion: According to our findings, it has been found out that

children with mild intellectual disability who had regular

physical activity experience fewer sleep problems and have

higher quality of life. In this vein, it is suggested that nurses

enhance the life qualities of mentally disabled children by

implementing appropriate initiatives and ways of informing.

Key words: Intellectually disabled child, nurse, life quality,

regular physical activity, sleep