Benson Paul R, Karlof Kristie L
Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2009 Feb;39(2):350-62. doi: 10.1007/s10803-008-0632-0. Epub 2008 Aug 16.
Stress proliferation (the tendency for stressors to create additional stressors) has been suggested as an important contributor to depression among caregivers. The present study utilized longitudinal data from 90 parents of children with ASD to replicate and extend a prior cross-sectional study on stress proliferation by Benson (J Autism Develop Disord 36:685-695, 2006). Consistent with Benson's earlier findings, regression analyses indicated that stress proliferation mediated the effect of child symptom severity on parent depression. Parent anger was also found to mediate the effect of symptom severity on stress proliferation as well as the effect of stress proliferation on parent depression. Finally, informal social support was found to be related to decreased parent depressed mood over time. Implications of study findings are discussed.
压力增殖（即压力源产生额外压力源的倾向）被认为是照顾者患抑郁症的一个重要因素。本研究利用来自90名自闭症谱系障碍儿童家长的纵向数据，对Benson之前关于压力增殖的横断面研究（《自闭症与发育障碍杂志》36:685 - 695, 2006）进行复制和扩展。与Benson早期的研究结果一致，回归分析表明，压力增殖介导了儿童症状严重程度对家长抑郁的影响。研究还发现，家长的愤怒也介导了症状严重程度对压力增殖的影响以及压力增殖对家长抑郁的影响。最后，研究发现非正式社会支持与家长随时间推移抑郁情绪的减轻有关。本文讨论了研究结果的意义。
