Predictors of Distress in Mothers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Background: Research consistently indicates that mothers of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience high levels of distress. There is an urgent need to understand the processes that lead to distress in mothers of children with ASD if we are to mitigate such experiences. There is preliminary evidence to suggest that psychological acceptance, empowerment, and positive gain may help to alleviate distress in mothers of children with ASD (Lloyd & Hastings, 2008; Nachshen & Minnes, 2005). Psychological acceptance refers to embracing both positive and negative emotions, empowerment is the process by which people gain greater access to and control over resources, and positive gain refers to the positive perceptions of parenting a child with a disability.   

Objectives: The current study examined how psychological acceptance, empowerment, and positive gain are related to mothers' perceptions of distress. It was hypothesized that maternal psychological acceptance, empowerment, and positive gain would moderate the relationship between child behavior problems and distress at the initial time point. In addition, it was predicted that maternal psychological acceptance, empowerment, and positive gain at the initial time point would predict a change in the experience of distress over time.  

Methods: As part of a large Canadian online survey of children with ASD, 132 mothers of children diagnosed with ASD aged 4-21 years old (108 boys and 24 girls; age M= 11.71, SD=4.64) completed the Family Empowerment Scale (Koren et al., 1992), the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (Bond et al., in press), the Positive Gain Scale (Pit-ten Cate, 2003), the Behavior Problem Inventory Short Form (Rojahn, Matson, Lott, Esbensen, & Smalls, 2001), and the Brief Family Distress Scale (Weiss & Lunsky, 2011). The measures were completed at two different time points with approximately one year in between. Child diagnoses included Asperger syndrome (32.1%), PDD-NOS (19.8%), Autism (46.6%), and other diagnoses (1.5%).

Results: Preliminary analyses revealed that psychological acceptance and empowerment did not moderate the relationship between behavior problems and distress at the initial time point. However, positive gain may be acting as a moderator because the interaction between behavior problems and positive gain had a trend towards being a significant predictor of distress, β = -.16, p = .09. Empowerment and positive gain at time 1 were found to be significant predictors of a change in distress, β = -.37, p = .01 and β = -.39, p = .01, respectively.  

Conclusions: Given that empowerment and positive gain were significant predictors of a change in distress, interventions that target these psychological constructs may be worthwhile pursuits for parents.