Saúde mental de mães de crianças com transtorno do espectro autista

Abstract

The daily care demands of children with ASD overload the main caregiver, who in most families is the mother, generating negative effects on their mental health. This is an observational, cross-sectional, analytical study with a quantitative approach guided by Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology, which aimed to analyze the mental health of mothers of children living with Autism Spectrum Disorder. A sociodemographic questionnaire, the Self-Reporting Questionnaire, the Brazilian version of the Burden Interview scale and the Brazilian version of The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support were used for data collection. The data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Version 21.0 software. The study included 149 mothers whose children were cared for at an autism care center in the Northeast of Brazil. The mothers were around 36 years old, most had completed high school or higher levels of education, had low income, 59% had signs of Common Mental Disorder and those with a psychiatric diagnosis showed more signs of it (p=0.001). Furthermore, 57.1% had mild to moderate level of burden and 53.7% had moderate perceived social support. Therefore, it was possible to identify that the mothers had deteriorated mental health, showing physical and psychological signs of mental disorders, despite having good perceived social support and not having a high burden. The monthly family income, the child’s degree of dependence and his age had an impact on the caregiver’s burden.