Abstract
Objectives Bringing up a child with the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be highly stressful. This study aimed to assess perceived stress, level of spousal support, emotion-focused coping styles, and other potentially associated factors among mothers accompanying children diagnosed with ASD for care from selected institutions in Kerala, India. Materials and Methods Consenting parents accompanying children to therapeutic programs in selected institutions were administered a semi structured interview schedule incorporating questions of the vernacular version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), emotion-based coping strategies, spousal support in care of the child diagnosed with ASD, and possible-associated factors. Since internal consistency of stress and coping questionnaires were low, principal component analysis was used to extract composite variables with reasonable psychometric characteristics for stress and coping. Statistical Analysis Ordinal logistic regression was performed with a three-level stress category as the outcome variable. Results High stress was significantly associated with low spousal support (adjusted odds ratio or AOR: 2.80; 95% confidence intervals or CI 1.286.11), having a completely dependent child (AOR 4.24 [95% CI 1.929.38]), and low acceptance levels (AOR 2.60 [95% CI 1.145.89]). Unlike mothers with high spousal support, mothers with low spousal support were likely to have difficulty in interacting with others ( p = 0.02) and a low level of acceptance ( p = 0.05). Conclusion Spousal support is important to preserve psychological health in mothers of children diagnosed with ASD. Mothers with low spousal support may need interventions that help increase acceptance levels or decrease avoidant behavior.
Copyright
Association for Helping Neurosurgical Sick People. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Derivative-Non Commercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit.
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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License, which permits unrestricted reproduction and distribution, for non-commercial purposes only; and use and reproduction, but not distribution, of adapted material for non-commercial purposes only, provided the original work is properly cited.
