Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate anxiety and depression in caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorders and its related factors.

Methods: The study was performed in the department of child and adolescent psychiatry of Sfax. It included eighty caregivers. The anxiety rating scale of Hamilton and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale were used to assess mental health variables in these caregivers. The Childhood Autism Rating Scale was used to evaluate the severity of autism spectrum disorder.

Results: More than half of the participants were depressed and anxious. The children of caregivers with depression had significantly lower mean scores of severity of autism than those with normal mood. Depression in caregivers was significantly associated with the female gender. Caregivers were significantly more depressed when their children go to speech therapy. Caregivers were more anxious when their children are males and in the rural areas.

Conclusion: Given the high prevalence of anxiety and depression among caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder, therapeutic intervention should be considered to alleviate their suffering, taking into account the specific risk factors for each culture.

Keywords: Autism; Caregivers; Depression; Anxiety

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Citation

Citation: Leila Cherif.,et al. “Depression, Anxiety and Related Factors in Tunisian Caregivers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Cross Sectional Survey". Acta Scientific Paediatrics 3.10 (2020): 51-57.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Leila Cherif.,et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.