Quality Determinants of Services for Parents of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

This study examined how the parents of young children with autism spectrum disorders perceive the quality determinants of services provided to them in the context of a public network of services. The perceptions of 176 families who were receiving, or had received, specialized services for at least 12 months and were living in urban, suburban, and rural areas were investigated on three fronts: the relative importance of four determinants of quality, their degree of realization, and parents' satisfaction relative to these determinants. These determinants were the accessibility, continuity and flexibility of services, as well as the validity of information provided. Parents felt that the accessibility, continuity and flexibility of services were the most important determinants of quality. However, continuity and accessibility were also perceived as being the least realized. Parents were more satisfied with the validity of information and the flexibility of services than with their continuity and accessibility. These response patterns were observed consistently among parents from urban, suburban, and rural areas, with the exception that rural residents were less satisfied with the continuity of services. Such results emphasize the importance of examining perceived quality from a dynamic perspective. Indeed, the complex relationships that may exist between different aspects of quality, parents' expectations and concerns, along with the actual service delivery conditions, must be taken into account. Our findings also provide an incentive to pursue the development and implementation of evidence-based innovative practices to enhance the integration of services.

Factors associated with sustained community employment among adults with autism and co-occurring intellectual disability

“…In the general population, living in a metropolitan area has been associated with about 80% greater likelihood of having a stable income after controlling for other factors (Yeung and Rauscher, 2014). For children with ASD, living in an urban area has been shown to be linked with greater availability of services (Hoogsteen and Woodgate, 2013; Rivard et al, 2015), and it is possible that the employment prospects of adults with ASD and ID might similarly be affected by their residential location. Thus, we hypothesize that living in an area with larger population size should be associated with higher odds of sustaining employment.…”

Development of a questionnaire to assess the quality of service trajectories in autism spectrum disorder from families' perspective

“…This initiative stemmed from a framework for the evaluation of the quality of integrated care developed in the Netherlands (Barelds et al, 2009(Barelds et al, , 2010(Barelds et al, , 2011 and the evaluation of the early childhood services in ASD in Québec (Rivard et al, 2015a(Rivard et al, ,b, 2016. relates to the quality of services).…”

“…They also added two other determinants that parents reported to be critical in their quality evaluation of services: validity (of the services and information) and empathy-listening skills (Rivard et al, 2015a(Rivard et al, , 2015b(Rivard et al, , 2016).…”

“…In contrast, parents express more favourable perceptions of the diagnostic process and the support they receive when they access these earlier in the course of the child's development (Howlin & Moore, 1998). In Québec specifically, parents report satisfaction towards early childhood services, but also communicate a need for a quicker and an easier route to these services (Rivard, Lépine, Mercier, & Morin, 2015a; Rivard, Morin, Mercier, Terroux, Mello, & Lépine, 2016; Rivard et al, 2018). They also deplore a lack of coherence, integration and continuity between services and the various professionals they encounter (Rivard et al, 2015a; see also Crane et al., 2016).…”

Translation and Validation of the Malay Version of the Parents’ Satisfaction Scale (PSS-M) for Assessment of Caregivers’ Satisfaction with Health Care Services for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Client satisfaction can be based on numerous factors, such as healthcare settings, technical management, and features of interpersonal care and staff interactions [ 2 ]. Among these factors, most authors believe that the patient–staff interaction has the best effect on client satisfaction [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ].…”