Psycho-social well-being among the parents of children with autism

This paper reports the results of a study of psycho-social well-being among an Australian sample of parents of children with autism. A variety of independent variables including: sociodemographic information, health and treatment status of the child and coping behaviours were assessed in terms of their effects on parental depression, anxiety and anger. The results of regression analysis indicated that fathers, and those parents who received more social support, had lower scores of depression, anxiety and anger. The age of symptom onset was positively related to depression, but was not significant in terms of anxiety and anger. Parents with older children, females and larger families reported lower scores of anger. These independent variables were not significantly related to depression or anxiety. Neither the type nor the extent of coping behaviours was significantly related to any of the measures of psycho-social well-being used in this study.