ABSTRACT
Objective The number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)has increased dramatically in the past years.Parents of children with ASD usually experience a variety of chronic and acute stressors that may decrease marital satisfaction and family functioning.The aim was to explore the characteristics of parental per-sonality,mood disorders and family functions of the Children with ASD and to explore the relevance factors in order to draw out methods to improve parental family functions.Methods A cross -sectional survey was conducted and 593 outpatients with ASD diagnosed in Shanghai Mental Health Center,Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine form January 201 0 to January 201 4 were straight into the group,their parents were tested by Family Assessment Device (FAD),Zung Self -Rating Depression Scale(SDS),Zung Self -Rating Anxiety Scale(SAS)and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire(EPQ).SPSS 1 7.0 software was adopted to establish the database and statistical analysis.Results Ac-cording to FAD,parents of children with ASD had lower scores in problem solving[(2.1 0 ±0.37)scores]and roles [(2.09 ±0.27)scores](t =-6.669,P =0.000;t =-1 8.707,P =0.000)than the standard scores,while other di-mensions score were significantly higher than the standard scores in communicdtion[(2.25 ±0.35)scores],emotional reaction[(2.38 ±0.40)scores],emotional involvement[(2.36 ±0.37)scores],behavioral control[(2.31 ±0.27) scores]and general function[(2.1 2 ±0.38)scores],there were significant differences(t =3.1 35,1 1 .1 1 5,1 6.997, 37.1 1 6,8.064;P =0.002,0.000,0.000,0.000,0.000).For EPQ of parents,mother had obviously higher scores than father in psychoticism scale[(53.68 ±1 .36)scores vs (52.65 ±1 .1 7)scores,t =-1 3.841 ,P =0.000],and signifi-cantly lower scores in Lie scale[(52.27 ±0.79)scores vs (52.1 7 ±0.75)scores,t =2.449,P =0.01 4].Compared to fathers,mothers were coded as higher depression and anxiety scores(t =-6.276,-6.440,all P =0.000)and higher prevalence rate(χ2 =1 5.893,27.592,all P =0.000),which were statistically significant.According to the asso-ciation study of FAD and the others(especially in mood of parents),it was found that several dimensions showed obvious correlation.Conclusions Parents of children with ASD have family function damaged badly,except for prob-lem solving and roles.The parents showed different personality traits and mood disorders,particularly mothers′mood disorder problem was prominent.Parental family functioning were closely related to their personality traits and emotional disorders in various dimensionalities,which was worthy of attention.
ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) of children aged 4-6 years in public kindergartens in Shanghai.Methods Songjiang district and Xuhui district were selected randomly as the representative sample.By means of "Clancy Autism Behavior Scale","Social Communication Questionnaire" and "high-functioning Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire",all of the 33 public kindergartens in chosen area,which contained 10 385 children aged 4-6 years,were surveyed.Those who were screened as suspected cases would be further diagnosed by "Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised" and "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,Fifth Edition".Results Among 9 665 valid questionnaires,9 children were diagnosed with ASD.The ratio of male to female was 8:1,the point prevalence rate was 0.93‰.The results of ADI-R corresponded with that of DSM-5.There were two children who never had medical records.For others,"language" problem was the most likely reason for their parents to seek medical help,while "deficits in social communication" was the main symptom of patients.Conclusion The prevalence of ASD was lower than those recorded in literature,home and abroad which might be related to some patients not going to public kindergartens.