Quality of life among parents of children with autistic disorder: a sample from the Arab world.
Arab moms and dads of kids with autism report the same quality of life, so one support plan fits both parents.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked 97 Arab mothers and 97 Arab fathers of children with autism to fill out the WHO quality-of-life form.
They compared the two groups on stress, coping style, money, and four life domains: body, mind, friends, and environment.
What they found
Mothers and fathers scored almost the same on every scale. The tiny gaps were not big enough to matter.
For both groups, higher stress meant lower quality of life. More money and stronger coping helped a little.
How this fits with other research
Laugeson et al. (2014) checked that the same WHO form works for autism parents, so the tool is solid.
Higgins et al. (2021) showed mothers of kids with disabilities feel more stress when community places are hard to reach. The Arab study adds that, once stress is counted, moms and dads feel alike.
Salomone et al. (2022) gave Italian parents free training and saw mood gains. The Arab data say both parents start from the same baseline, so you can invite both to training without extra mom-only supports.
Why it matters
If you run parent groups in Arab countries, skip the pink and blue flyers. One flyer fits all. Invite both parents to stress-management nights, respite lists, or WHO caregiver classes. You will not need to build separate dad tracks or mom tracks unless other culture clues tell you otherwise.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: A growing body of research has sought to examine issues associated with the Quality of Life (QoL) of parents of children with Autistic Disorder. However, no studies have examined the QoL of Arab parents whose parenting experience is expected to be substantially different from that of their western counterparts. Therefore, the purposes of this study were: (1) to examine differences in the QoL between fathers and mothers of children with Autistic Disorder in a sample from an Arab country, and (2) to examine the psychosocial correlates of the QoL of Arab parents of children with Autistic Disorder. METHODS: Self-administered questionnaires on parents' QoL, stress, coping strategies, and demographic characteristics were completed by 184 parents of children with Autistic Disorder. The participants were recruited using the convenience sampling design. RESULTS: Fathers and mothers of children with Autistic Disorder showed no significant differences in their physical, psychological, social, and environmental health. Further, both parents showed almost similar bivariate correlations between the reported QoL levels and their parenting stress, coping strategies, and demographic characteristics. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to examine the QoL of parents of children with Autistic Disorder in the Arab world and, in doing so, it highlighted the distinct lack of research in this area. The QoL of Arab parents of children with Autistic Disorder crosses lines with their stress levels, coping strategies, demographic characteristics, and to some extent their cultural context.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.10.029