Services for children with autism in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Little information is available about autism spectrum disorder services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A sample of 205 parents completed an online survey about the use of autism spectrum disorder services for their children. The results revealed that on average, children began services by 3.3 years. Most parents reported utilizing non-medical treatments followed by biomedical treatments and cultural and religious treatment. The age at the initiation of services and the type of treatments used differed by parent's income, educational attainment, the extent of knowledge about autism spectrum disorders, and geographic location. Some child characteristics also influenced the use of services. The disparities in service utilization in Saudi Arabia point to the need to develop policy and interventions that can mitigate the paucity of services for children with autism spectrum disorders. More research is needed to better understand service use and the decision-making processes that underlie treatment selection by parents of children with autism spectrum disorders in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Predictors of Caregivers’ Satisfaction with the Management of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Study at Multiple Levels of Health Care

“…In the current study, caregivers were found to have waited on average more than one year to start contacting a health care professional and on average nearly 1.3 years to receive a formal ASD diagnosis, suggesting a delay of more than two years. This delay is similar to that experienced by caregivers in the UK [12] and more than one-half of that experienced by caregivers in Saudi Arabia [14]. The delay in seeking help reflects a lack of knowledge among certain caregivers about the importance of early diagnosis and intervention.…”

“…This finding is similar to those reported by Moh and Magiati [9] in Singapore. By comparison, in the UK, southeastern Europe and Saudi Arabia, caregivers first reported noticing developmental delays earlier, around their child’s second birthday [12,14,17]. The possible reason why Malaysian caregivers might recognize development delays later is that, in such collectivistic cultures, encroaching on other people’s business is discouraged.…”

“…The health care management of children with ASD has often been described as unsatisfactory by their caregivers [4]. Delays in obtaining diagnosis [5,6,7], the number of professionals involved [8,9], waiting times for doctor consultations [10,11], consultation times with health care providers [9,10], knowledge and experience on the part of health care providers [12], the frequency of therapy appointments [10,13], and the amount of support and explanation provided during and immediately after diagnosis [5,13,14,15] have all been studied in relation to understanding caregivers’ experiences of the process of health care management of children with ASD.…”

A conceptual framework for understanding the cultural and contextual factors on autism across the globe

“…The second perspective concerns the financial means of a household. Across different geographical contexts, the access to and quality of ASD services is associated with income (Alnemary, Aldhalaan, Simon-Cereijido, & Alnemary, 2017;Bishop-Fitzpatrick & Kind, 2017;Colbert, Webber, & Graham, 2017;Dickerson et al, 2017), with parents of lower socioeconomic status reporting poorer access (Bishop-Fitzpatrick & Kind, 2017) and poorer quality (S. Magaña, Parish, & Son, 2015) of care for their child with ASD. In addition to direct healthcare expenditures, indirect expenditures, such as transportation costs or opportunity costs of the caregiver missing out on incomegenerating activities, play a role (Daley, 2004;Minhas et al, 2015;Peters et al, 2008;Tilahun et al, 2016).…”

“…the quality of the road; availability of public transport services, etc) (Peters et al, 2008). Given the scarcity of mental health services and the often centralised location of services in or near larger cities (Saraceno et al, 2007), adequate access to diagnostic and intervention services is especially problematic for individuals living in more remote areas (Alnemary et al, 2017;Saxena et al, 2007). ASD studies from South Asian countries highlight how a limited number of specialists concentrated in big cities means it is prohibitively difficult for caregivers of children with ASD to seek help, with some families having to travel for days (Daley, 2004;Minhas et al, 2015).…”