Comparison of Developmental Family Functioning, Personality Traits, and Parenting Stress in Mothers with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Peers with Normal Counterparts

Neurodevelopmental disorders cause a wide range of problems for the child that directly or indirectly lead to a decrease in the quality of life of the family. Considering that mothers have the most responsibility for the development of their children, this study aimed to compare family developmental function, personality characteristics and parenting stress of mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder with mothers of normal children.

This was a causal-descriptive study in which 50 mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder and 50 mothers of normal developmental children who were selected by convenience sampling method completed the Transformational Function Assessment Questionnaire. Family, five-factor personality inventory (NEO-FFI), parenting stress index (PSI-SF).

Data analysis showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups of mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder and normality in family developmental function, personality traits and parenting stress (P = 0.001) and the developmental function of mothers of normal children was significantly different. Above the group of mothers had autistic children. Also, parenting stress and neuroticism of mothers of autistic children were higher than that of normal mothers (P = 0.001) and mean extraversion of mothers of normal children was higher than the average of autism mothers (P = 0.001).

The results of this study showed that caring for a child with autism has an impact on psychological functions such as family development, personality traits and parenting stress in the affected person's family and requires serious attention to the family of this group of people.