Aishworiya Ramkumar, Saw Young Ern, Chan Yiong Huak, Chong Shang Chee, Kiing Jennifer S H, Tan Mae Yue, Lim Tammy Su Hui, Mulay Kalyani Vijaykumar, Kang Ying Qi
Child Development Unit, Khoo Teck Puat - National University Children's Medical Institute, National University Hospital, National University Health System, 5 Lower Kent Ridge Road, Singapore, 119074, Singapore.
Department of Paediatrics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2024 May 21. doi: 10.1007/s10803-024-06391-6.
This cross-sectional study aimed to assess Quality of life (QoL) of parents of children on the autism spectrum in Singapore and identify its associated factors. Parents of children (age ≥ 5 years) completed the Quality of Life in Autism scale which measures parental self-rated QoL (higher scores denote greater QoL), and the perceived impact of the child's autism-related behaviors on parents (higher scores denote lesser impact). Information on the child's degree of autism (measured by the Social Responsiveness Scale, second edition [SRS-2]), community and social participation and cognitive and adaptive functioning were also obtained. Participants were 86 parents with mean child age 6.3 years (SD 1.0). Univariate analysis results revealed greater participation in community and social events to be two modifiable factors associated with higher parental QoL. However, these factors were not found to be significant in the multivariate model. Higher autism features (represented by higher parent-rated SRS scores) was associated with a greater perceived impact of the child's behaviors by parents in both univariate and multivariate analyses. Of note, child's cognitive or adaptive skills were not significantly associated with either QoL measure. Equipping parents to handle autism-related behaviors can be useful to reduce their impact on parental QoL. Facilitating community participation for these children may positively influence caregiver QoL as well.
这项横断面研究旨在评估新加坡自闭症谱系障碍儿童家长的生活质量（QoL），并确定其相关因素。儿童（年龄≥5岁）的家长完成了自闭症生活质量量表，该量表测量家长自评的生活质量（分数越高表示生活质量越高），以及儿童自闭症相关行为对家长的感知影响（分数越高表示影响越小）。还获取了有关儿童自闭症程度（通过社会反应量表第二版[SRS-2]测量）、社区和社会参与以及认知和适应功能的信息。参与者为86名家长，其子女平均年龄为6.3岁（标准差1.0）。单因素分析结果显示，更多地参与社区和社会活动是与较高家长生活质量相关的两个可改变因素。然而，在多变量模型中，这些因素并不显著。在单因素和多因素分析中，较高的自闭症特征（以家长评定的较高SRS分数表示）与家长对孩子行为的较大感知影响相关。值得注意的是，儿童的认知或适应技能与任何一项生活质量测量均无显著关联。帮助家长应对自闭症相关行为可能有助于减少这些行为对家长生活质量的影响。促进这些儿童的社区参与也可能对照顾者的生活质量产生积极影响。
