Depression, Anxiety, Stress, and Resiliency in Iranian Families with Autistic Children

 Caring for children with autism is associated with parental stress and puts them at risk for depression and anxiety. Increasing resilience may help reduce the parents’ stress. The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between resilience and anxiety, depression, and stress in families with autistic children in 2018.

 In this cross-sectional study, 137 members of the target families were selected randomly. The cases were surveyed based on the family resilience scale and DASS-21 questionnaire with the checklist of demographics variables. The collected data were analyzed by the MS Excel and SPSS V.22 software.

 There was no significant correlation between age/gender and resilience, but depression and anxiety was related to the level of resiliency. Income and history of mental illness had significant associations with depression. The family size, educational level, income, and history of mental illness had a significant effect on anxiety. The level of education, income, history of mental illness and gender had statistically significant associations with the level of stress among individuals.

 Based on the results of this study, family resilience is the factor that directly correlates with the level of depression, anxiety and stress among the family members of the autistic children. It is therefore advisable to increase this ability of individuals in various ways, such as training, counseling and supporting groups.