Explore the challenges in daily life and quality of life of mothers with autistic children: mothers' perspective

Abstract

Abstract Rational: Autism is a neurological disorder and the prevalence of this disorder is increasing day by day. Due to their challenging behavior and interest those child need always high supervision and care-giving. As mothers are the primary care-giver, they have to fulfill all responsibilities regarding their special child’s needs,domestic tasks and needs of their other children, spouse and other family members. Moreover, they have to face different social stigma due to their child’s disability. Thus their own daily life and quality of life become impacted in many ways. It is important to know about mothers’ challenges in daily life and quality of life with autism child. Objectives of the study:The objectives were to identify mothers understanding about the condition of autism and the amount of time to perform their ADL’s besides taking care of their child, italso explore if there any challenges in physical, social, psychological and family for mothers of children with autism. Methodology: The study was an ethnographic study under qualitative design. The study was conducted in the peadiatric unit of Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP ) at Savar, Proyash at Savar and Beautiful Mind School at Uttara, Dhaka. By using convenient sampling method about 10 mothers of autistic child were identified by the respected study settings. Semi structure open-ended questioners with face to face interview were used for data collection. Data was analyzed by using qualitative content analysis. Result and Conclusion: From the finding of the research, it was seen that the mothers have lack of understanding about the condition of autism. After having a child with autism mothers’ can’t perform their ADL’s properly, due to time limitation for care-giving demands of the child. Most of the mothers are also facing physical, social, psychological challenges but they are getting enough support from family members and spouse, but most of the mothers reported that they are unable to make time balance with their other children.