Factors affecting quality of life of caregivers of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder

• Published in: Indian journal of psychiatry Vol. 60; no. 3; pp. 278 - 285
• Main Authors: Ozgur, Borte, Aksu, Hatice, Eser, Erhan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: India Wolters Kluwer India Pvt. Ltd 01.07.2018; Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt. Ltd; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd
• Subjects: Analysis; Autism; Autistic children; Care and treatment; Caregivers; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Children; Children & youth; Communication; Families & family life; Health aspects; Kruskal-Wallis test; Original; Parents & parenting; Patients; Pervasive developmental disorders; Psychological aspects; Quality of life; Questionnaires; Social aspects; Sociodemographics; Special education; Statistical analysis; Studies; Validity; Variables; Autism; caregivers; logistic regression; quality of life; parenting; child
• ISSN: 0019-5545; 1998-3794; 1998-3794
• DOI: 10.4103/psychiatry.IndianJPsychiatry_300_17

Context: Since autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong disease and because of its nature, the negative effects of the disease on the quality of life (QoL) of caregivers as well as patients are incontrovertible. Aims: It was aimed to evaluate the effect of the variables related to both parents and children on the QoL scores of the parents of the children with ASD. Settings and Design: This is a causality analysis study. Subjects and Methods: Questionnaire on sociodemographic/disease-related variables, QoL in Autism Questionnaire-Parent Version (QoLA-P), autism behavior checklist and Clinical Global Impression scale were assessed of 162 patients with ASD. Statistical Analysis Used: Unpaired t- test, Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and one-way ANOVA test were used for comparing groups. The parameters found to be statistically significant for QoLA-P in different analyses were included as the independent variable in the logistic regression analysis. The backward (variable elimination) model was selected as the model in the analysis. Results: The causality has been established may be stated as the severity of autism, the presence of psychiatric disorder in the mother/father, attendance of the child at school, duration since the diagnosis of autism, and the child's medication use. Conclusions: Autism affects the QoL of caregivers. The intervention of treatment by considering the factors that affect the QoL positively or negatively may increase the QoL of caregivers.