Effects Of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction On Parenting Stress Of Parents Of Autistic Children

Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder characterized by severe,extensive social interaction and communication disorders,narrow range of interests,and repetitive behaviors.Autistic children lack the ability to take care of themselves and have severe behavioral problems,while the expense of rehabilitation treatment is high,bringing heavy burden to the whole family.Studies have shown that the parenting stress of parents of autistic children is significantly higher than that of ordinary children,differs significantly according to the sex of the parent,and has harmful consequences to their mental and physical state.Mindfulness-based stress reduction is a psychological therapy rooted on the principles of mindfulness.It was first applied in clinical practice to provide psychological support to cancer patients,and was proven to significantly reduce anxiety,depression and fear in patients.Subsequently,it was also applied to autism and other clinical conditions with same significant positive results.Studies have shown that mindfulness meditation training can significantly reduce the idiosyncratic features of autistic people,improve their social skills,and improve their behavioral problems.Meditation training for parents of autistic children can extensively improve their quality of life and change their parenting style.The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of mindfulness-based stress reduction on parenting stress of parents of autistic children.36 parents of autistic children were recruited and divided into experimental groups 1 and 2.The experiment was divided into two stages.First,the parents of the two groups were pre-tested for parenting stress before intervention(O0).In the first stage,the parents in group 1 were trained for Mindfulness-based stress reduction,while parents in group 2 were only introduced with knowledge of Mindfulness-based stress reduction without any exercise.Both groups were,then,tested for the second time(O1).In the second stage,parents in group 2 were trained with Mindfulness-based stress reduction,while group 1 only accompanied children for rehabilitation training.Subsequently,a third parenting stress test was performed(02).The results obtained on the second test(O1)showed that the parenting stress in group 1was significantly lower after completing the first stage in relation to those results in pre-test,while the degree of parenting stress in group 2 did not show any significant change in relation to the results obtained in pre-test.Nevertheless,after completing the second stage,once group 2 was trained,the parenting stress was significantly reduced and those differences between group 1 and group 2 disappeared.The results of parental difference analysis showed that there were significant differences in the total score of parenting stress index,parenting distress,parent-child interaction dysfunction and difficult children before the training of parents in group 1 and 2,but no significant differences after the training.Conclusion:Mindfulness-based stress reduction can effectively intervene the parenting stress of the parents of autistic children and significantly reduce their stress.There are gender differences in parenting stress;Mindfulness-based stress reduction can eliminate differences in parenting stress.