Abstract
Background: This paper aimed to review the literature on the factors associated with parenting stress and resilience among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the South East Asia (SEA) region.Methods: An extensive search of articles in multiple online databases (PsycNET, ProQuest, PudMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) resulted in 28 papers that met the inclusion criteria (i.e., conducted in the SEA region, specific to ASD only, published in a peer-reviewed journal, full text in English). Studies found were conducted in the following countries: Brunei, n = 1; Indonesia, n = 2; Malaysia, n = 12; Philippines, n = 5; Singapore, n = 5, Thailand, n = 2; and Vietnam, n = 1, but none from Cambodia, East Timor, Laos, and Myanmar were identified.Results: Across the studies, six main factors were found to be associated with parenting stress: social support, severity of autism symptoms, financial difficulty, parents' perception and understanding toward ASD, parents' anxiety and worries about their child's future, and religious beliefs. These six factors could also be categorized as either a source of parenting stress or a coping strategy/resilience mechanism that may attenuate parenting stress.Conclusion: The findings suggest that greater support services in Western countries may underlie the cultural differences observed in the SEA region. Limitations in the current review were identified. The limited number of studies yielded from the search suggests a need for expanded research on ASD and parenting stress, coping, and resilience in the SEA region especially in Cambodia, East Timor, Laos, and Myanmar. The identified stress and resilience factors may serve as sociocultural markers for clinicians, psychologists, and other professionals to consider when supporting parents of children with ASD.
Highlights
Parenting children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be more stressful and challenging than parenting children with typical development, especially in countries where there is a dearth of various support resources
Studies have documented the critical role that social support plays in aiding parents of children with ASD to successfully cope with their higher levels of stress (e.g., Tehee et al, 2009; Ekas et al, 2010; Lovell et al, 2012; Weiss et al, 2013); including the importance to gain easy access to and support from mental health professionals (e.g., Mackintosh et al, 2012; Vohra et al, 2014)
These findings highlights the importance of examining the underlying sources and predictors that may lead to parenting stress and warn us against assuming that the mere diagnosis of ASD in a child is sufficient as a driving factor in increasing parenting stress (Herring et al, 2006)
Summary
Parenting children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be more stressful and challenging than parenting children with typical development, especially in countries where there is a dearth of various support resources. When distinguishing between the relative importance of factors that may contribute to parenting stress, research found that the child’s emotional and behavioral problems contributed significantly more to mothers’ stress, perceived family dysfunction, and parent mental health problems, than the child’s dignosis, presence of a development delay, or child’s gender (Herring et al, 2006) These findings highlights the importance of examining the underlying sources and predictors that may lead to parenting stress and warn us against assuming that the mere diagnosis of ASD in a child is sufficient as a driving factor in increasing parenting stress (Herring et al, 2006). This paper aimed to review the literature on the factors associated with parenting stress and resilience among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the South East Asia (SEA) region
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