Compliance with home rehabilitation therapy by parents of children with disabilities in Jews and Bedouin in Israel

Among key points in making progress and succeeding with a therapeutic progr amme for children with disabilities is parental compliance with the regime for their child. The purpose of this study was to evaluate factors influenc ing compliance with home therapy in the Jewish and Bedouin populations. Dat a were collected by structured questionnaires. A total of 193 families part icipated (84% response rate) with children who ranged in age from 6 months to 6 years (mean age at first visit to the centre was 9.5 years in Jews and 16.1 sears in Bedouin). Compliance was significantly lower among the Bedou in. Multivariate regression analysis showed that the strongest contributory factor in lack of compliance was being Bedouin. The second factor was inte nsity of questioning destiny, indicating that parents with these feelings m ay be less likely to comply with therapeutic regimes. Other factors which w ere associated with compliance were parents' education and socioeconomic st atus: lower levels on these dimensions corresponded with lower parental com pliance. These results were illuminated by a. trial intervention programme for Bedouin families which involved telephone contact, translation faciliti es, and detailed explanations during visits to the centre. Intervention inc reased the compliance rate of the Bedouin appointments with specialists to 76% (91 of 120 appointments) thereby reaching similar levels to those of th e Jewish group. These preliminary results indicate that the strong associat ion between noncompliance and being Bedouin may be due to factors of commun ication, and that the Bedouin are receptive to therapeutic interventions wh en communicated in their own language.