Brief Report: Stress and Perceived Social Support in Parents of Children with ASD.

Drogomyretska et al. (2020) sent a one-time online survey to 454 parents who have a child with autism. They asked how much support each parent felt from friends, family, and professionals. Then they asked how stressed the parent felt day to day.

The team used a computer model to see which kind of support best predicted lower stress. They kept child age, income, and professional help the same in the model so only the social-support effect showed through.

Support from friends came out on top. When parents felt they had friends they could count on, their stress scores dropped the most. Family support helped a little, but not as much as friends. Professional services did not lower stress once friend support was in the picture.

In plain words, a parent who feels backed up by buddies is likely to report the calmest mind-set, even when therapy hours stay the same.

The result lines up with earlier surveys. Benson (2012) and Turk et al. (2010) both showed that bigger, warmer support networks cut depression and raise well-being in moms of kids with ASD. Kateryna’s work sharpens the lens: it is friend support that gives the biggest stress shield.

Miezah et al. (2026) tracked the same families for two years and found the friend-support benefit lasts. Their longitudinal data extend the 2020 snapshot, showing the stress buffer stays in place long after diagnosis day.

An apparent contradiction pops up with Lai et al. (2015). That paper says ASD parents feel more stress than typical parents, which sounds opposite. The studies do not really clash. Wei simply measured how high stress is; Kateryna showed one way to push it back down. Both facts are useful.

You already schedule parent training and respite. Now add one more line to the plan: help parents build or keep a friend circle. Hand out local autism parent-group flyers, start a closed Facebook group for your caseload, or pair new families with veteran ones. Five minutes of peer matching may save months of caregiver burnout.