A qualitative study on perspective of parental stress and lower marital quality among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifetime neurodevelopmental condition. It affects not only the child but also the members of the family and parents particularly. The current study was qualitative in nature, designed to explore the experiences of parents, raising a child with ASD in Pakistan. The sample of the study comprised 15 mothers and 13 fathers of children with ASD. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data and five stages of stress and six major themes (Child management and diagnosis, Treatment and financial challenges, Social suffering, Emotional and psychological pain, Marital discord and Coping mechanism) emerged from the data. In the current study, parents of children with ASD reported lack of guidance, high fee demands, lack of awareness, family pressure, high level of stress and stigmatization. Parents also suffered from unbearable distress and marital discords including conflict, disharmony, lack of communication, and lack of spousal support. Parents deemed these challenges as never ending and it had a great impact on their wellbeing and on their abilities to cope or manage things in their daily life. This research project has wide implications in the fields of counseling psychology, educational psychology, and mental health.

Keywords:

• Parental stress
• marital discord
• stigma by association
• denial
• social suffering

Community involvement statement

Community members were not involved in the current study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical statement

Our study is approved by Government college university, Lahore institute of industrial biotechnology (approval no GCU/IIB/138). All patients provided written informed consent prior to enrollment in the study (all the detail information provided in procedure). There are no potentially harmful activities involved in the study and no involvement of the use of drugs and clinical trials are involved.

Data availability statement

Detail analysis and research material include interviews verbatim were available on demand as the original verbatim of parents were in Urdu language so before sharing we convert it in English language for understanding.