Psychological Distress and Perceived Burden Among Bangladeshi Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Cross-sectional Study

Taking care of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is extremely demanding, both physically and mentally, and can have a negative impact on the family. It takes a lot of time, effort, and patience to meet the extra care needs of the afflicted children. This often causes their parents to experience psychological distress, depression, and other mental health issues. Therefore, we designed the study to investigate the caregiver burden and psychological distress among parents of children with ASD and the associated sociodemographic factors influencing parental burden. This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted with parents of 180 children with ASD in three tertiary hospitals in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A pre-validated structured questionnaire was used to collect data, and the caregiver burden was assessed using Zarit Burden Interview and scored to estimate the burden level. The mean age of the children in the sample group was 4.68 ± 0.96 years; 62.8% were boys. Nearly half of the children (46.1%) were diagnosed with ASD in the 2 nd year of birth, and comorbidities were present in 31.7%. It was determined that the burden level was significantly higher among mothers of children with ASD than among fathers ( p