Effectiveness Of Interventions For The Mental Health Of Parents Of Children With Autism

Autism spectrum disorder is a widespread neurodevelopmental disorder with moderate to severe impairments in social communication,cognitive development,and repetitive and restrictive behaviors as its core symptoms.Children with autism cannot take care of themselves and often have severe behavioral problems,which can burden parents and have a profound negative impact on their mental health.Therefore,this study conducted a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of mental health intervention for parents of autistic children,summarized and sorted out the effective mechanism of psychological intervention,and on this basis,designed a comprehensive psychological intervention program for empirical research in order to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of comprehensive intervention programs.In study 1,the effectiveness of mental health interventions for parents of autistic children was compared quantitatively and qualitatively through Network Meta-Analysis.A total of 64 empirical intervention studies were included through literature search and screening,including 3805 parents of children with autism.Based on the frequency framework model,Stata 15.0 software was used to quantitatively analyze the effectiveness of different interventions in improving parental stress,anxiety,depression,and parenting self-efficacy of parents of autistic children.The Network Meta-Analysis showed that MBIs were most effective in improving parental stress for parents of autistic children.PED had the best effect on reducing depression and improving parenting self-efficacy.ACT was most effective at reducing anxiety levels in parents.On this basis,the literature reviews the influential factors of the above interventions and further constructs the effective mechanism of psychological intervention for parents of autistic children.Based on the evidence of study 1,Study 2 designed a comprehensive psychological intervention course for parents of autistic children and conducted empirical research.A total of 34 parents of children with autism were recruited,including 18 in the intervention group and 16 in the control group.Through online intervention on Tencent Conference APP,six psychological intervention courses were conducted twice a week(1-1.5 hours each time).Before and after the intervention and one month after the intervention,parents’ psychological status was measured by using the “Parenting Stress Index-Short Form,PSI-SF,” “Depression Anxiety Stress Scale,DASS-21”,“Parenting Self-Efficacy Assessment Tool-TOPSE,” “Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II,AAQ-II”,“Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire,CFQ-F.” The results show that psychological intervention has specific immediate and delayed effects on reducing parental stress,anxiety,and depression and improving parenting self-efficacy.In conclusion,based on the comprehensive analysis of existing intervention evidence,this study further designed a comprehensive intervention course for the mental health of parents of autistic children and conducted an empirical study.On the one hand,it provides specific scientific evidence and a theoretical basis for the design and development of intervention programs in the future.On the other hand,it provides a new idea and inspiration for exploring the comprehensive intervention of parents’ mental health of autistic children,which has theoretical and practical significance.