Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017;29(4):567-586.
doi: 10.1007/s10882-017-9547-z. Epub 2017 Mar 31.

Stress among Parents of Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Comparison Involving Physiological Indicators and Parent Self-Reports

Ciara Padden  1   2 , Jack E James  2   3
Affiliations

Stress among Parents of Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Comparison Involving Physiological Indicators and Parent Self-Reports

Ciara Padden et al. J Dev Phys Disabil. 2017.

Abstract

Parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been reported as experiencing higher levels of stress and poorer physical health than parents of typically developing children. However, most of the relevant literature has been based on parental self-reports of stress and health. While research on physiological outcomes has grown in recent years, gaps still exist in our understanding of the physiological effects, if any, of stress related to parenting a child with ASD. The present study compared parent-reported stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as selected physiological measures of stress (i.e., cortisol, alpha-amylase, and ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate) between matched groups of parents of children with (N = 38) and without (N = 38) ASD. Participants completed questionnaires, collected saliva samples for the purpose of measuring cortisol and alpha-amylase, and wore an ambulatory blood pressure monitor for 24 h. Parents of children with ASD reported significantly higher levels of parental distress, anxiety, and depression than parents of typically developing children. Parent-reported distress, anxiety, depression, and health were not correlated with physiological measures. With the exception that parents of children with ASD had significantly lower cortisol levels 30 min after waking, no other significant group differences were found for physiological measures. Parents of children with ASD reported significantly higher use of a number of adaptive coping strategies (e.g., emotional support) in comparison to parents of typically developing children. Results are discussed in the context of implications for future research directions, stress research, and practical implications for parental support.

Keywords: Alpha-amylase; Ambulatory blood pressure; Autism spectrum disorder; Cortisol; Parenting stress.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mean values and standard errors bars for cortisol awakening responses (μg/dL) for parents in ASD (circles with solid line) and control (triangles with dashed line) groups
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abidin RR. Manual for the parenting stress index. Odessa: Psychological Assessment Resources; 1995.
    1. Adam EK, Kumari M. Assessing salivary cortisol in large-scale, epidemiological research. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2009;34:1423–1436. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2009.06.011. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Adam EK, Hawkley LC, Kudielka BM, Cacioppo JT. Day-to-day dynamics of experience-cortisol associations in a population-based sample of older adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2006;103:17058–17063. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0605053103. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Allik H, Larsson J-O, Smedje H. Health-related quality of life in parents of school-age children with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes. 2006;4:1–8. doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-4-1. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. American Psychiatric Association . Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-IV-TR. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 2000.

LinkOut - more resources