Quality of life and coping strategies used by parents of children with autism spectrum disorder in Oman

Abstract

Objective Raising a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can have a significant impact on quality of life (QOL). This study was conducted to assess the QOL and coping strategies of parents of children with ASD in Oman. Method This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Al-Masarra psychiatric hospital. Telephone interviews were conducted with the parents of all children diagnosed with ASD and attending Al-Masarra Hospital between January 2018 and October 2021. Data were collected using the Ways of Coping Checklist-Revised and World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment-Brief. Results A total of 304 parents participated in the study (response rate: 100%), of which 59.5% were female. The mean age of the parents and children with ASD was 40.4 ± 6.9 and 8.4 ± 2.3 years, respectively. Most children with ASD were male (78.3%) and entirely dependent upon their parents (18.1%). Seeking social support was the most common coping strategy (75.53 ± 13.99), while escape avoidance was the least common (51.78 ± 8.04). Most parents (48.7%) rated their QOL as good to very good, with acceptable scores in the psychological (70.92 ± 11.22) and social (73.27 ± 11.46) domains, borderline in the physical health domain (63.51 ± 7.77), and poor in the environmental domain (58.31 ± 11.00). Conclusions Omani parents of children with ASD utilize various coping strategies, with coping skills considered a positive index for mental health in general. No significant differences were observed between Omani fathers and mothers in terms of QOL or coping strategies.

Caregiver’s Quality of Life Among Children with Cerebral Palsy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Various Influencing Factors: A Single Cohort Study

“… 18 AlBusaidi et al also used WHOQOL-BREF scores of less than 60 as the cutoff point to determine the poor quality of life among the caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorders in Oman. 19 The total QOL score obtained in our study according to WHOQOL-BREF was 66.38; hence, compared with previous literature, we can conclude that the QOL was better for caregivers of children with CP in the Asir region.…”

Parents' Coping Strategies for their School Children's Issues: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Regarding the context of issue touched by the selected studies, a total of seven papers involved raising autism children (AlBusaidi et al, 2022;Amireh 2019;Brillet et al, 2023;Gül et al, 2022;Ilias et al, 2019;Johnson et al, 2020;Lewis et al, 2022), while five articles related to COVID-19 pandemic (Aznar et al, 2021;Dawes et al, 2021;Morgan et al,2022;Saini et al, 2023;Ünlütabak & Velioğlu, 2022) and raising intellectual disabilities children (Auriemma et al, 2021;Disasa 2022;Karaca & Şener, 2021;Rajan & Romate, 2022;Wilmot et al, 2023). Two papers focused on the parent-children relationship issue (Boor et al, 2021;Donker et al, 2021) while following issue each research is regarding academic challenges (Tu et al, 2020), the coping strategy applied by children Santiago et al (2021), online learning from home Chara et al (2023), parent level of stress Cepuch et al (2022), raising Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) children Wong and Wong (2021), raising disabled children (Kurowska et al, 2021), and social adjustment by left-behind children (Liu et al, 2023) (see Figure 4).…”

“…This review also identified the category of parents' children studied in every research. A total of seven papers focused on the autism children (AlBusaidi et al, 2022;Amireh 2019;Brillet et al, 2023;Gül et al, 2022;Ilias et al, 2019;Johnson et al, 2020;Lewis et al, 2022), while six papers focused on disabled children (Auriemma et al, 2021;Disasa 2022;Karaca & Konuk Şener, 2021;Kurowska et al, 2021;Rajan & Romate, 2022;Wong & Wong, 2021). Meanwhile, five papers concentrated on adolescents (Boor et al, 2021;Donker et al, 2021;Morgan et al, 2022;Saini et al, 2023;Tu et al, 2020), while the other three papers fixated on preschool & elementary school children (Chara et al, 2023;Dawes et al, 2021;Ünlütabak & Velioğlu, 2022).…”

“…Parents experience stress while raising children with autism, prompting them to adopt strategies for seeking social support. This was researched by (Albusaidi et al, 2022;Amireh, 2019;Brillet et al, 2023;Gul et al, 2022;Ilias et al, 2019;Johnson et al, 2020;Lewis et al, 2022). For parents raising children with intellectual disabilities, seeking social support also was employed as a coping strategy when in a stressful situation (Auriemma et al, 2021;Disasa, 2022;Rajan & Romate, 2022;Wilmot et al, 2023).…”

“…The disengaged strategy is also used by parents when raising disabled children Kurowska et al ( 2021), parents with children hospitalized due to leukaemia or lymphoma diseases Cepuch et al (2022), and parents when raising autistic children (Amireh, 2019). For escaping and avoidance coping methods, this strategy has been discovered in research by (Albusaidi et al, 2022;Brillet et al, 2023;Kurowska et al, 2021;Morgan et al, 2022;Rajan and Romate, 2022). Meanwhile, an avoidance strategy is also applied by parents to limit their engagement with the rolling news coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic on television or social media (Dawes et al, 2021).…”