TITLE:
Psychological effects of parenting children with autism prospective study in Kuwait
AUTHORS:
Abdullahi Fido, Samira Al Saad
KEYWORDS:
BDI; Autism; Mothers; Depression; Kuwait
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Psychiatry,
Vol.3 No.2A,
April
16,
2013
ABSTRACT: Background: Recent reports suggest that the prevalence
of autism in the Arab world ranges from 1.4 cases per 10,000 children inOmanto 29 per 10,000 children in theUnited Arab Emirates.
While these rates are lower than those of the developed world, which are 39 per
10,000 for autism and 77 per 10,000 for all forms of autism spectrum disorders
(ASD), it does not necessarily mean the condition is less prevalent in the
Arab world. Objectives: Studies of parents with children with autism suggest
that 35% - 53% of mothers with children show various degrees of depressive
symptoms. However, many of these studies were conducted in western countries
which still make little inferences about the prevalence of these stresses in
Arab countries uncertain. No data are available on the use of the BDI on
parents of children with autism in Kuwait. The aim of the present study was to
evaluate the prevalence of parental depression in families of children with
autism and in control families. Subjects and Methods: The participants in
this study were 120 mothers and fathers of autistic children whose children
were attending the Kuwait Autism Center at the time of this study. They were
asked to complete the Arabic translated version of the Beck’s Depression
Inventory (BDI). It consists of 21 symptoms or attitudes commonly seen in
patients suffering from depression. The symptoms are rated from “0”to “3”in intensity. The following cut-off points of depressive
symptoms were used when interpreting the results in the present study: the
range of scores from 0 to 9 indicates no depression, 10 - 20 dysphoria and over
20 depression. Results: The mean standard deviation scores for the mothers of
autistic children were 21.2 ÷ 2.9 and 10.3 ÷ 2.1, (p = 0.001) for the control mothers
respectively. No significant difference were observed across the samples of
fathers other than slight increase for the autistic group. Marital status did
not affect the number of mothers of the autism groups who had elevated
depression scores, but single mothers in both groups had higher elevated
depression scores than mothers living with partners, (x2 = 6.4, p