The Stress level and Stress Management in Autistic child’s Parents at Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Nakhon Ratchasima Rajanagarindra Psychiatric Hospital.

Abstract

Autism is communication disorder resulting in developmental defects social and language. These children need helping in their daily life that affect their parents mental health problems. This survey study aimed 1) to study the stress levels of autistic child’s parents 2) to study the stress management of autistic child’s parents at Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Nakhon Ratchasima Rajanagarindra Psychiatric Hospital. Participants consisted of 100 autistic child’s parents of who came to the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department Nakornratchasima Rajanagarindra Psychiatric Hospital by simple random sampling. The online reseach instruments included a personal information questionnaire, the Suanprung Stress Test-20 and questionnaire of stress management with reliability equal to 0.748. Statistics used for the data analysis included: percentages, frequencies, means, standard deviations and means result interpretation.

The results showed that most of autistic child’s parents had a hight stress (46%), moderate stress (26%), severe stress (25%), and mild stress (3%) respectively. Stress management was selected problems solving and emotional solving (x̅ = 3.52, SD 0.76). They try to find how to solve the problems and choose the best to solve feasible solution and try to carefully analyze the root cause of the stress to correct the problems. Recommendations should be refer the results of the study to the staff of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department Nakhon Ratchasima Rajanagarindra Psychiatric Hospital plan to help autistic child’s parents.