Contributors to well-being and stress in parents of children with autism spectrum disorder

Background: Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present more well-being and stress problems than parents of typically developing (TD) children. However not all parents present these problems. These problems can be due to a dynamic interaction between environmental antecedents, person antecedents, and mediating processes. Understanding how these factors separately contribute to explain parents’ well-being and stress can have implications for intervention programs. The aim of this study was to explain parents’ subjective well-being and physiological stress by considering whether they had a child with ASD or not and their child’s negativity (environmental antecedents), their perception of their child’s problems (person antecedents), and their use of reappraisal (mediating processes).

Method: Thirty-seven parents of children with ASD and 41 parents of TD children reported their subjective well-being and their physiological stress was assessed. Additionally, children’s negativity was observed, parents rated their perception of their child’s problems (autistic traits, emotion regulation ability, and lability/negativity), and parents reported their use of reappraisal.

Results: Compared to parents of TD children, parents of children with ASD reported having lower subjective well-being and had increased physiological stress. Parents’ perceptions of children’s lability/negativity and parents’ use of reappraisal were better predictors of parents’ subjective well-being than ASD and parents’ perceptions of children’s lability/negativity contributed to parents’ physiological stress as much as ASD.

Conclusions: Prevention and intervention programs targeting parental well-being and stress will benefit from working with parents at the level of perceptual constructs and reappraisal ability.