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MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS OF PARENTS OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN
By: Kazi Imrul Kayesh,Sabina Sultana,Noor Muhammad
Key Words: Mental health, autism spectrum disorder, gender, age, family income.
JLES-Vol-14-No-P-8-15, December 2019.
AbstractThe purpose of the present study was to examine the mental health of parents having children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in relation to their gender, age and family income. A total of 284 parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were selected purposively from different districts of Rajshahi division in Bangladesh for the study. Anxiety of the respondents was measured by administering Anxiety Measuring Questionnaire (Deeba and Begum 2002) and depression of the respondents was measured by applying Depression Measuring Questionnaire (Uddin and Rahman 2005). Adapted Bangla version of Life Stress Measuring Questionnaire (Fahim 2001) originally developed by Cohen, 1999 was used to measure the life stress of the same participants. The study indicates that in Bangladesh parents of ASD have adverse mental states that evident as anxiety, depression and stress and the findings are consistent with previous studies from different populations. Results of this study denote that parents differed significantly in anxiety (t = 9.19, p < 0.001), depression (t = 9.16, p < 0.001), and stress (t = 8.01, p < 0.001) scores in terms of their gender. Especially, mothers of children diagnosed with autism had significantly lower mental health and experience more anxiety, depression and stress as compared to children’s father. Parents also varied in terms of their age for anxiety (F = 15.875, p < .001), depression (F = 20.025, p < 0.001), and stress (F = 19.195, p < 0.001). Parents, age ranging from 26 to 35 years, were more anxious, depressed and stressed due to their children’s condition. Also, anxiety (F =18.019 p < 0.001), depression (F = 29.931, p < 0.001), and stress (F = 47.929, p < 0.001) scores varied significantly according to family income discrepancy for parents who have autistic children. Parents from low income families were more anxious, depressed and stressed for their children with ASD. The findings of this present study can be enormously helpful for the mental health professionals to take required actions for enhancing the psychological states of the parents having children with ASD.
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Kazi Imrul Kayesh,Sabina Sultana,Noor Muhammad
MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS OF PARENTS OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN
JLES-Vol-14-No-P-8-15, December 2019.
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