Psychological predictors of a mother's attitude towards the illness of a child with autism spectrum disorder: The role of self-attitude and proactive coping

Context and relevance. The attitude towards a child's illness is interconnected with the mother's self-attitude and her coping behaviour, and determines the quality of life of the mother, the child, and the family. Objective. To determine the role of an individual's self-attitude and proactive coping in mothers' responding to the illness of a child with ASD, in order to enable a reduction of tension and a positive attitude towards the child. Hypothesis. A mother's self-attitude and her choice of coping behaviour strategies influence her perception of the illness of a child with ASD. Methods and materials. The study involved 80 mothers raising children with ASD (diagnoses F84.0, F84.1, F84.4). The average age of the mothers was 36.45 ± 4.78 years. The average age of the children was 6.32 ± 2.26 years. Psychodiagnostic methods: the “Self-Attitude Test Questionnaire” by V.V. Stolin and S.R. Pantileev; the “Diagnosis of Attitude to a Child's Illness” technique (DOBR; V.E. Kagan, I.P. Zhuravleva); a proactive coping behaviour questionnaire adapted by E.S. Starchenkova. Methods of mathematical and statistical data processing: the Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. Results. It is shown that the parameters of mothers' self-attitude are interrelated with their attitude towards the child's illness and with the characteristics of proactive coping. Negative self-attitude determines a tense attitude towards the illness and an exaggeration of the severity of symptoms. The expectation of a negative attitude from others is associated with an anxious reaction to the child's illness. Regression models were obtained for the types of attitude towards the illness of a child with ASD: “Anxiety” (F = 4,336; p = 0,041), “Nosognosia” (F = 6,146; p = 0,015), “General tension” (F = 9,543; p = 0,01). Conclusions. A mother's self-attitude is a key factor in her perception of her child's illness. Mothers with a low level of self-interest tend to have anxious reactions to the illness. A low level of self-esteem is accompanied by an exaggeration of the severity of symptoms. The presence of emotional support and mothers' self-esteem reduce overall tension regarding the illness

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