Garrido Dunia, Gomez-Perez M Mar, Petrova Dafina, Arreola Miriam, Catena Andres, Garcia-Retamero Rocio
Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Universidad de Málaga, Granada, Spain.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2025 Jun 4. doi: 10.1007/s10803-025-06900-1.
Improving family quality of life (FQoL) of families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a key priority in clinical research and practice. Previous studies have suggested that certain health-related behaviors in children with ASD, such as sleep or physical activity, may affect FQoL. However, the relative and independent effects of different health-related behaviors on FQoL remain poorly understood. This study investigated the relationship between sleep, mealtime difficulties, screen time, physical activity, and FQoL in ASD. Parents of 65 children with ASD aged four to thirteen years completed a detailed assessment of their children's health-related behaviors and FQoL. A multiple regression framework was used to estimate the independent contribution of each health-related behavior to FQoL. Only sleep and mealtime problems were independently associated with lower FQoL, even after controlling for physical activity, screen time, gender, age, traits of ASD, and intelligence, accounting for a 60, and 3% of the variance, respectively. All categories of sleep and mealtime problems were associated with FQoL, with particularly strong correlations for sleep anxiety (r =.71), daytime sleepiness (r =.70), and food refusal (r =.72). In addition to core autistic features, sleep and mealtime behaviors are associated with FQoL in children with ASD. Interventions aimed at improving sleep habits and reducing mealtime difficulties many enhance FQoL in children with ASD.
提高自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童家庭的生活质量（FQoL）是临床研究和实践的关键优先事项。先前的研究表明，ASD儿童的某些与健康相关的行为，如睡眠或体育活动，可能会影响FQoL。然而，不同的与健康相关的行为对FQoL的相对和独立影响仍知之甚少。本研究调查了ASD儿童的睡眠、进餐困难、屏幕使用时间、体育活动与FQoL之间的关系。65名年龄在4至13岁的ASD儿童的家长完成了对其孩子与健康相关行为和FQoL的详细评估。使用多元回归框架来估计每种与健康相关行为对FQoL的独立贡献。即使在控制了体育活动、屏幕使用时间、性别、年龄、ASD特征和智力之后，只有睡眠和进餐问题与较低的FQoL独立相关，分别占方差的60%和3%。所有类别的睡眠和进餐问题都与FQoL相关，其中睡眠焦虑（r = 0.71）、白天嗜睡（r = 0.70）和食物拒绝（r = 0.72）的相关性尤为强烈。除了核心自闭症特征外,睡眠和进餐行为与ASD儿童的FQoL相关。旨在改善睡眠习惯和减少进餐困难的干预措施可能会提高ASD儿童的FQoL。
