Abstract
Parent carers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often report increased levels of stress, depression, and anxiety. Unmet parent carer mental health needs pose a significant risk to the psychological, physical, and social well-being of the parents of the child affected by ASD and jeopardize the adaptive functioning of the family as well as the potential of the child affected by ASD. This systematic review identifies key qualities of interventions supporting the mental health of parent carers and proposes practitioner-parent carer support guidelines. A search of four databases (Medline, PubMed, PsycINFO, and Social Science Data) was conducted to identify studies that met the following criteria: (1) an intervention was delivered to parent carers of a child with ASD under the age of 18 years; (2) the research design allowed for a comparison on outcomes across groups; and (3) outcome measures of the parent carers’ mental health were used. A total of 23 studies met the inclusion criteria. A critical interpretive synthesis approach was used to produce an integrated conceptualization of the evidence. Findings suggest practitioner guidelines to support the mental health and wellbeing of parent carers should include addressing the parent’s self-perspective taking and skill for real time problem-solving.
Highlights
Parents who are primary carers of a child affected with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are often found to experience higher levels of stress and poorer physical health when compared with parents of children of typical development [1,2,3], parents of children diagnosed with other disabilities [4,5], or when compared to the general population [6,7,8,9,10,11]
We aimed to identify and critically cross-walk findings from the extant studies with the intention to propose practice guidelines for practitioners and parent carers for improving the mental health and psychological wellbeing of those parents who have a child affected by ASD and are challenged with maintaining their own wellbeing
A total of 29 studies were excluded by mutual consensus of the co-authors resulting in a total of 23 studies included in the synthesis
Summary
Parents who are primary carers of a child affected with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are often found to experience higher levels of stress and poorer physical health when compared with parents of children of typical development [1,2,3], parents of children diagnosed with other disabilities [4,5], or when compared to the general population [6,7,8,9,10,11]. The parenting stress experienced by parents of a child affected with ASD appears to pose a greater risk to the parents’ psychological and health-related quality of life.
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