Correlation between Psychological Distress and Marital Relationship Quality among Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) In Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

Caring for a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be challenging and influence the psychological wellbeing and marital relationship quality of parents throughout the child‘s lifetime. This will have a reciprocal effect on the affected child by reducing the intervention gains due to the mental illness of the parents. This quantitative study was conducted to identify the levels of psychological distress (stress, anxiety and depression), and marital relationship quality in families having a child with ASD. The parents who participated in the study were 127, married and having children aged between 3 and 19 years. They were residents of Nairobi County. The psychological distress of parents with ASD children was measured using DASS 21 and marital distress was measured using the RDAS tool. The study was guided by three theoretical frameworks: Transactional Theory of stress by Folkman and Lazarus (1985), Cognitive Theory of depression by Clark & Beck (1999) as well as the Ambiguous Loss Theory by Susan Boss. Results indicated that a substantial number of the parents in the study had psychological distress with prevalence rates at stress 40.2 %( 51), anxiety 48.8% (62) and depression 40.2% (51) whereas 45% (57) of these parents were in distressed marriages. A significant bidirectional association between psychological distress and the marital relationship quality of these parents was also found: - Stress and marital relationship quality r (127) =- 0.264, p= 0.008; anxiety and marital relationship quality r (127) =-0.215, p= 0.01; depression and marital relationship quality r (127) =-0.273, p =0.002. The data obtained indicated that a significant number of parents with ASD children suffer from psychological distress and their marital relationship quality is also distressed. It is therefore necessary not only to develop interventions that help the ASD child alone but also incorporate the parents and families of the ASD child in the interventions because the mental and emotional state of the parents will affect the ASD child negatively and wipe out positive intervention gains made by the affected child.

Keywords: Psychological distress, stress, anxiety, depression, marital relationship quality, marital distress, parents With ASD children in Kenya, DASS21 and RDAS.