Quality of Life of Mothers of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders and Its Relationship With Severity of Disorder and Child's Occupational Performance

Mothers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have the lowest grade of quality of life compared with mothers of children with other disorders like mental retardation, learning disorders, or physical impairments. To the best of our knowledge, there is no study on the influence of severity of disorder and occupational performance of autistic child on mother’s quality of life. This study aims to determine the relationship between quality of life of these mothers with severity of disorder and occupational performance in their autistic children.
The participants included 35 mothers and their children with ASD (aged 3 to 7 years). They were selected by available sampling method from Tehran City, Iran. Severity of disorder and occupational performance were respectively measured by Gilliam Autism Rating Scale 2 and Canadian Occupational Performance Measure.
The relationship between mothers’ quality of life and severity of their children’s ASD was significant (except for two components of physical roles [P=0.276] and bodily pains [P=0.174]. Also correlation of mothers’ quality of life and occupational performance was significant (except for four dimensions of physical functioning [P=0.439] , physical roles [P=0.801], bodily pains [P=0.105] and role emotional [P=0.140]).
The results show that quality of life of mothers of autistic children is significantly associated with severity of disorder and occupational performance of children, but its relationship with severity of disorder is more pronounced than occupational performance. Therefore, in order to improve mother’s quality of life, the severity of symptoms of ASD should be decreased and child’s occupational performance increased.