Quality of Life of Families with Children with Intellectual Disabilities in Slovenia

In the first part of this chapter we describe the care and support systems for children with intellectual disabilities and their families in Slovenia. In the second part we present data on family quality of life in Slovenia. We present family quality of life scores for the entire sample as well as separately analyzing the data for families: with children with intellectual disabilities who experience developmental issues and for families with children with intellectual disabilities who experience behavioral issues. Data were collected using the family quality of life survey (Brown et al., 2006), which was adapted according to Slovene conditions. Results of particular interest are: (1) the low family quality of life for Slovene families with a child with an intellectual disability relative to international averages; (2) a statistically significantly higher family quality of life in the families with children with intellectual disabilities who experience developmental issues compared with families with children with intellectual disabilities who experience behavioral issues; and (3) financial wellbeing, being statistically significantly correlated to total family quality of life.