Stress and emotional wellbeing of parents due to change in routine for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at home during COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia.
When routines and services disappear, parents of children with autism feel crushing stress, so build backup support before the next crisis hits.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Alhuzimi (2021) sent an online survey to Saudi parents who have a child with autism. Parents answered questions about stress, mood, and the help they got during COVID-19.
The survey asked how closed schools, stopped therapy, and new home routines changed daily life.
What they found
Parents reported much higher stress and lower emotional well-being than before the pandemic. The worse the child's autism symptoms, the worse the parents felt.
Lost services and lack of respite were the biggest predictors of parent distress.
How this fits with other research
The same pattern appeared in Italy and Germany. Marcone et al. (2023) and Isensee et al. (2022) also saw stress double when COVID-19 cut therapy and school.
Alharbi (2024) asked the same Saudi families about eating habits and found routines fell apart there too. Together the two Saudi papers show child and parent problems rose side-by-side.
Before the pandemic, Yorke et al. (2018) pooled many studies and showed child behavior problems already raised parent stress. COVID-19 simply poured gasoline on that fire.
Why it matters
You can ease future crises by writing a parent-support plan into the behavior plan. Offer telehealth, short video check-ins, or flexible session times when in-person stops. Teach parents one quick self-monitoring tool, like a five-point stress scale, and pair it with a ready list of respite or sibling-care contacts. Keeping parent stress low protects both the adult and the child's progress.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience considerable amounts of stress and impaired emotional well-being. Consequently, it is likely that these have been adversely impacted by COVID-19 outbreak due to disruptions to the schedules of children with ASD. AIM: This study investigated the stress and emotional well-being of parents of children with ASD in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHOD: The study obtained quantitative data from 150 parents of children with ASD from different regions in Saudi Arabia using an online survey. The data collected included demographic data of the parents, ASD status of the family, ASD support during COVID-19 pandemic, severity of ASD behaviours in comparison to the pre- COVID-19 status eating behaviour of the child with ASD, Parental Stress, and emotional well-being. The PSI-short form (PSI-SF) (Abidin, 1995) scale was utilised to obtain data related to parental stress and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) (Goldberg, 1992) scale was utilised to obtain data related to parents' emotional well-being. RESULTS: The study found that family ASD status (in particular, age and gender of child with ASD, and severity of his/her symptoms) had a significant impact on parental stress and emotional well-being. Moreover, parental stress and emotional well-being were negatively impacted by the frequency and usefulness of ASD support received during COVID-19 pandemic. These were also adversely impacted by the change in severity of ASD behaviours of the children with ASD. Finally, parental stress was found to have a negative impact on the emotional well-being of parents. Overall, the study found that the parental stress and emotional well-being of parents of children with ASD in Saudi Arabia had been unfavourably impacted by COVID-19 pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the study found that the parental stress and emotional well-being of parents with ASD in Saudi Arabia had been unfavourably impacted by COVID-19 pandemic. This study recommends the involvement of the Saudi Ministry of Health to establish and extend support services to support parents of children with ASD. Moreover, the provision of training programs to help parents deal with the characteristic behaviour of their children with ASD such as, the ability to maintain routines, aggressive or repetitive behaviour, is also recommended.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2021 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2020.103822