The Comparison of parental stress and anger self-regulation skills between parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism

Attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and Autism are neurodevelopmental disorder that creates many problems for parents and families in term of parenting and parent's mental health. The purpose of this study was to compare the parental stress and anger self-regulation skill in parents of children with ADHD and autism. The research method of the present study was descriptive-causal comparative. 60 parents (30 parents of children with ADHD and 30 parents of children with autism) were selected by the purposeful sampling method. Data were collected by Parenting Stress Questionnaire (Abidin, 1983) and State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 (STAXI-2) (Spilberger, 1999). Data were analyzed by t-test. Findings indicated that the scores of parenting stress and anger self-regulation skill were significantly higher in parents of children with Autism than those with ADHD (P<0/05). According to the findings of this study can be concluded that parents of children with Autism compared with parents of children with ADHD have more parenting stress and parents of children with ADHD compared with parents of children with Autism have less anger self-regulation skill which may be caused by the special needs of these children. In this way, planning and implementing appropriate psychological and educational interventions for the parents of these children can be very helpful.