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. 2023 Jan 17;12(3):735.
doi: 10.3390/jcm12030735.

The Quality of Life among Siblings of Autistic Individuals: A Scoping Review

Giuseppe Quatrosi  1 , Dario Genovese  2 , Emanuele Amodio  2 , Gabriele Tripi  2   3
Affiliations

The Quality of Life among Siblings of Autistic Individuals: A Scoping Review

Giuseppe Quatrosi et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorders are a heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental disorders presenting at a tender age, defined by qualitative deficits in social interactions and communication, thus having a substantial influence on the subject's family unit. Quality of life (QoL) refers to a person's perspective of their life situation, cultural and value background, objectives, expectations, and standards. When focusing on childhood and adolescence, age-related changes should be considered. For this scoping review, the authors used three peer-review literature database sources (PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and ERIC) to delve deeper into components of the QoL of non-autistic siblings of autistic individuals. At the completion of the eligibility phase, 9 studies were included out of the 96 initial records. A total of 4/9 articles (45%) compared the non-autistic siblings of autistic individuals to the siblings of non-autistic people, while 3/9 articles (33%) compared the first group to the non-autistic siblings of patients with other chronic diseases. A total of 5/9 studies adopted specific questionnaires to evaluate QoL. Results from 6/9 articles revealed that the autism condition has varying effects on non-autistic siblings' QoL. According to the considered research, non-autistic siblings of autistic individuals experienced decreased psychological well-being, less perceived social support, increased aggressiveness and conflict-proneness, and higher levels of anxiety and stress impacting their QoL. The present findings provide important implications for additional and more punctual studies in this sector. Furthermore, as being a non-autistic sibling of an autistic individual is commonly undervalued, this review advocates the need to organize and improve support services for siblings.

Keywords: QoL; autism; autism spectrum disorders; quality of life; siblings; well-being.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart representing PRISMA flow diagram of studies’ screening and selection.
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