Predicting Marital Satisfaction with Respect to Parenting, among Parents with Autism Children and Parents with Normal Children

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder in pervasive developmental disorders class, which is characterized by extensive abnormalities in social interaction, communication, restricted interests, and repetitive behaviors. Parents having autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children face a lot of stress that may negatively affect their marital satisfaction and parenting styles. The aim of this study was to prevent the birth of children with autistic spectrum disorder which is the cheapest recommended action. Therefore, this study is focused on two components of marriage, satisfaction and parent-child relationships. Population of this study consisted of children with ASD enrolling in education and treatment centers of Besharat and Hisepinhan, and parents of normal children at primary schools in 2016in Kermanshah(west of Iran). A total of 100 parents of children with autistic spectrum disorder (50 fathers and 50 mothers) and 100 parents of normal children (50 fathers and 50 mothers) were randomly selected. Tools used in this research to determine the effects included: 1) Afrooz marriage satisfaction scale to measure satisfaction rate of marriage between parents, 2) Bagheri's parent-child relation pattern Inventory (PCRPI). Afrooz marriage satisfaction scale consists of 10 subscales. The reliability coefficient of the total scale of Cronbach's alpha was calculated and showed an equivalent to0.95 that reflects the reliability of the scale. Spouse concurrent validity scores on this scale are significant compared with scores in the questionnaire of "Enrich marital satisfaction". Scale was made based on social-cognitive and clinical experience in the field of Islamic-Iranian (local) culture that leads to marital satisfaction and suitable for both research and clinical status. Bagheri's PCRPI was constructed based on an Iranian-Islamic model to investigate the intrusion parents and parenting style. PCRPI is a native model of this inventory containing 48 questions that measures eight subscales. Cronbach's alpha reliability showed 0.961 and the reliability of each subscale was equivalent to (0.92-0.95). The present study in terms of operational purpose and data collection is a case-control research Our results obtained from multivariate stepwise regression analysis showed a significant difference between two groups (parents with ASD children and parents of normal children) in the alpha level of 0.001 or p<0.01 and p<0.05 revealed. This analysis showed that the levels of marital satisfaction and patterns of parent-child relationships of the parents of autistic children is different to parents of normal children. : Results showed the effectiveness of marital satisfaction skills training and selecting the most appropriate parent-child relationships in preventing the birth of children with autistic spectrum disorder. Findings open a broader perspective on the factors that led to the birth of autistic children urges families and authorities to bear in mind to prevent the birth of children with autistic spectrum disorder. The total findings indicate that ASD prevention programs increases the marital satisfaction, education, and parenting style.