A cross-cultural comparison of a measure of parent perceptions among families of children with autism in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese IPQ-R-ASD is ready for use, but expect Vietnamese parents to view autism through a more collectivistic lens than Western parents.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team translated the IPQ-R-ASD into Vietnamese. They asked parents of children with autism to fill it out.
They wanted to see if the tool worked in Vietnam and how Vietnamese views of autism differ from Western views.
What they found
The Vietnamese version of the scale is ready to use. It holds up well in a collectivistic culture.
Vietnamese parents see autism more as a family matter, not just a child illness. This shapes how they seek help.
How this fits with other research
Mitter et al. (2019) found that stigma hits autism families worldwide, but culture changes the impact. Vassos et al. (2023) show one way to capture those cultural twists.
Lord et al. (1997) saw that Western parents who view their kids as “difficult” report more stress and their kids show less social spark. The new study does not clash; it simply adds a Vietnamese lens. Same topic, different culture.
Giesbers et al. (2020) also validated a caregiver tool for people with IDD. Both papers give clinicians green lights to use new rating scales, one for vulnerability, one for illness beliefs.
Why it matters
If you work with Vietnamese families, use the Vietnamese IPQ-R-ASD. Expect answers that put family and community first. Tailor your parent training to reduce stigma and build collective support, not just individual coping.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Raising an autistic child can affect many aspects of families' lives. Parents are responsible for many decisions, from initiating evaluation to selecting and implementing treatments. How parents conceptualize the course and nature of their child's diagnosis influences these processes and parents' own well-being. Parents' perceptions about their children's autism are also affected by cultural contexts and understanding of autism. The Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised (IPQ-R) is widely used to study cognitions in chronic health research and has been adapted and validated to measure parents' perceptions and beliefs about their children's ASD (IPQ-R-ASD). However, such studies are mostly conducted in high-income countries (HICs) with western, individualistic cultural values (e.g. United States, Canada). Therefore, it is unclear whether the IPQ-R-ASD is a useful instrument in understanding parents' perceptions of autism in Vietnam, a lower- and middle-income country (LMIC) with collectivistic Asian cultural values. These differences suggest that parents in Vietnam may have cognitive representations of their children's autism that differ from those of parents living in HIC, western countries. The purpose of this study was to examine the usability of the translated Vietnamese IPQ-R-ASD that may, ultimately, help explore Vietnamese parents' autism perceptions. While the study's result indicated the usability of the translated measure in Vietnam, when interpreted with Vietnamese norms, results also highlighted notable differences between Vietnamese and North American parents' perceptions of autism that warrant further research.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2023 · doi:10.1177/13623613221141262