From despondency to competence : psychological well-being of parents of children with autism spectrum disorder in Hong Kong

Abstract

This research aimed to search for, and study how the environmental (i.e., social support from the source of spouse, family and friends), child’s (i.e., child’s behavioural problems) and parent’s (i.e., parental self-efficacy and hope) factors influenced the psychological well-being for parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Hong Kong in a mixed-method design study. Study One was preceded by a pilot study that aimed to (1) develop and validate a Parental Self-Efficacy Scale for Caring Individual with ASD (APSE) across a sample of parents of children with ASD in Hong Kong; (2) conduct content and reliability validation of the instruments to be used in Study One; and (3) perform preliminary statistical analyses facilitating main study. The APSE scale was developed and reviewed through focus-group study, phone interviews and expert validation, and was pilot tested with 25 parents of children with ASD. The results showed that all the instruments to be used in Study One were reliable and possessed good criterion validity. Study One was a quantitative study aimed at testing the research hypotheses and the conceptual model in order to address the research questions. Utilising the validated questionnaire surveys from the pilot study including the newly developed APSE scale, a total of six measures to examine the hypothesized associations in the conceptual models and to determine if parent’s factor in the conceptual model was playing a mediation role to the influence of the child’s and environmental factors on parental psychological well-being. A sample of 173 parents of children with ASD was recruited from different organisations in Hong Kong. Mediation analyses results showed that the effects of child’s behavioural problems and social support from friends were mediated by task-specific parental self-efficacy and the will of hope on parent distress and parenting stress. Study findings and limitations are discussed. Study Two aimed to interpret and elaborate findings from Study One by focusing on the qualitative elucidation of the significant factors that were identified, and to explore other key influential elements that were not included in Study One in order to integrate a comprehensive view to understand what makes these parents to make through the challenges from the perspective of the parents of children with ASD in Hong Kong. Eight parents of children with ASD age ranged from 4 to 15 years selflessly shared their parenting journey granting the synergized research findings from the quantitative and qualitative study derived from parents’ perspective. Building upon the model of stress in parent-child interactions developed by Mash and Johnston (1990) as the theoretical framework, the pure intention of this piece of work as a genuine depiction of the parents of children with ASD in Hong Kong by a parent of a child with ASD in Hong Kong.