Empowerment of Mothers in Raising and Caring of Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder

ABSTRACT: Autism is one of the most incapacitating developmental disorders. Receiving an autism spectrum diagnosis is a significant event in the lives of families. It cause unique series of stressors for parents including social isolating, stigma, difficulties in obtaining treatment, financial burden, difficulty to do normal family activities and low attention to other children of family. These problems affect family function and family empowerment. Family empowerment is an essential indicator for both children with autism and their family. In most families, the mother tends to have the fist role in caring of child with autism disorder and consequently mothers endure greater psychological pressure than other family members. There have been done no research on empowerment of mothers of children with autism in Iran. Therefore the current study conducted to examine mother empowerment in raising and caring child with autism. This study is descriptive study. Target population consisted of 115 mothers of children with autism disorder who referring to autism institute of Tabriz city, 2012. Data were collected by completing questionnaire including two parts of demographic and Family Empowerment Scale (FES). the result of multiple regression analysis suggested that mother education and rehabilitation time significantly can predict the level of mother empowerment. According to the result of this research we can help to autism institution to choose effective ways for empowering families of children with autism and enhancing child and family function and as a result increasing treatment outcomes and better adaptation ways with autism diagnosis.