Spiritual Journey in Mothers' Lived Experiences of Caring for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Lived Experiences of Iranian Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

Background

Autism is a lifelong condition that seriously affects many aspects of children's and families' lives. The experience attained by living with a child with autism can be a valuable source of information to provide support and satisfactory services to children with autism and their families. We aimed to investigate the lived experiences of Iranian parents of children with autism.

Methods

The search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Google Scholar, CINAHL, PsychInfo, SID, and Magiran until Nov 2021. Two reviewers screened the articles, applied inclusion criteria, critically evaluated articles using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP), and extracted study details according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist. Thematic synthesis was used to analyze included studies.

Results

From 2772 articles in the initial search, sixteen studies entered the final analysis. Four themes emerged, including treatment-related lived experience, individual lived experience, social lived experience, and occupational lived experience. Iranian parents of children with autism are confronted with negative experiences, including inaccurate diagnostic processes, lack of adequate support at the diagnosis time, low-quality treatment, psychological problems, and concern about the child's future. Also, Parent's experiences showed family problems, stigma, and problems with doing occupations.

Conclusion

Practitioners, policy-makers, and regulatory organizations should urgently consider issues mentioned in the parents' experiences to provide proper healthcare services for children with autism and their families.

Examining the Effectiveness of WhatsApp-Based Spiritual Posts on Mitigating Stress and Building Resilience, Maternal Confidence and Self-efficacy Among Mothers of Children with ASD

Spiritual posts delivered via WhatsApp were found effective for mothers of children with ASD in mitigating parenting stress and building parental self-efficacy, confidence and resilience as compared to a control group. Intervention compliance was a prerequisite, and, middle-class mothers, highly qualified, salaried/self-employed, who perceived full support from their spouses/families and who also participated in other support groups or skill development programs benefitted most. Latent class analyses revealed six subgroups of participants likely to gain most from the intervention: middle class mothers, highly qualified, salaried/self-employed, who participated in other skill development programs, above threshold posts readers and homework doers. Spirituality built mothers' psychological resources, but dyadic interventions may be needed for dealing with challenges and uncertainties of autistic child's emotional/behavioral characteristics.

Development of Parental Competence Scale in Parents of Children with Autism

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study is to develop and psychometrically of parental competence scale in parents of children with autism.

DESIGN & METHODS

This mixed-methods design with a sequential exploratory approach was conducted in May 2017 until June 2018 in the south of Iran. In the first phase, a conventional content analysis method was performed with the participation of 16 parents of children with autism. Interviews were held in the autism association offices in an urban area of Iran. In the second phase, validity and reliability of this instrument were assessed with 300 parents of children with autism.

RESULTS

During content validity testing, 12 items were deleted. Content validity ratio and index were 0.75 and 0.85, respectively. In face validity, impact scores for all items were reported as >1.5. Factor analysis led to the development of a 2-factor solution accounting for 71.4% of the observed variance. Reliability of the instrument using the calculation of the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was reported as 0.98 for the entire instrument. No statistically significant difference was reported between the pre and post-test scores of parental competence (p = 0.46). The parental competence scale demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties.

CONCLUSION

The parental competence scale demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties. Therefore, this scale can be used for assessing parental competence in parents of children with autism.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

This scale can be used in future research and for educational and practical purposes with the aim of identifying parents' issues and improving the quality of life of parents of children with autism.

Parental Competence in Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

OBJECTIVES

This work aimed to define and assess the parental competence of parents with autistic children.

METHODS

This study was conducted through a systematic review. The search was done in databases, including Cochrane Library, PubMed, CINAHL, Science Direct, Wiley Scopus, Pro Quest, Web of Science, Elsevier, Google Scholar, and Ovid by using keywords, like "children, autism, parenting, competence, and scale" from 1974 to 2019. Inclusion criteria were that the article should be quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method studies in nursing, psychology, and medicine; the full text of the article should be available and the article should be in English or Persian.

RESULTS

Competence among these parents was affected by more factors and they reported lower competence compared to other parents. Moreover, only two instruments were available to assess parenting competence, which were not designed for parents of autistic children. Variables and factors affecting parenting competence has not been examined well in parents of children with autism, and no specialized instrument is available to evaluate parenting competence in parents with autistic children either.

CONCLUSIONS

Although parental competence has been known as the main element to improve the quality of care, it has been studied restrictively from the viewpoints of the parents of children with autism. Therefore, the development of this concept is highly essential for clinical application and investigating its outcomes support.