The incidence of congenital Heart Diseases (CHD) was reported to be 8/1000 live born infants [1]. Annually, there are 400,000 deaths and hundred of thousands of children died due to rheumatic fever (RF) and rheumatic heart diseases[2]. The prevalence of heart diseases in children in Egypt is not precisely estimated. moreover, the incidence of RF is not expected to dramatically decline in the near future. Quality of Life (QOL) is an estimate of remaining life free of impairment, disability or handicap[3]. Chronic conditions put increased stress on the child and the child's parents and siblings. Children with any chronic condition have twice the risk of developing mental health disorders of healthy children, and three times the risk if they have an accompanying disability[4]. The parents rate their children's QOL to be worse than the children themselves do[5]. It may be affected by their expectations for the child and by the fact they have different definitions and understanding of a disease and its consequences for the future [6, 7, 8].
Although it has been argued that all chronic illnesses can negatively affect health-related quality of life of the parents of disabled children; each disease present unique challenges,[9] for example, parents of asthmatic children-have poor QOL especially in their emotional domain affecting their social life[10]. Regarding parents of cancer children, it was found that they have high levels of anxiety and depression especially in the months immediately after diagnosis of cancer[11]. Studies of parents of epileptic child have showed that their major concern was regarding the child's seizures, loss of consciousness, ill effects of anti-epileptic drugs and their only major concern in family life was that having an epileptic child put an added strain on their marital relationship[12].
The finding on QOL among parents of disabled children are contradictory, in addition little is known about the identification and quantification of determinants of QOL among parents of children with heart diseases. The number of studies conducted are very scarce and non of them was carried out on a developing country like Egypt. Hence, this work was undertaken to describe the QOL of parents of children with heart diseases and to identify the most important factors that had an impact on it.