A cross‐sectional study of emotional exhaustion among parents of autistic children in Pakistan

Abstract

Background: Emotional exhaustion is globally renowned terminology and described as feeling of being emotionally overstretched, or drained of one's emotional and physical resources. Parenting an autistic child has severe consequences for not only the autistic child but the parents as well. Most of the parents go through stress, phases of skepticism, suspicions, highly grief and despair, self-accusation and guiltiness, while remaining go through the feeling of inability to help and persistent shock. Objective: This study was designed to find out the level of Emotional Exhaustion in the parents of autistic children. Methodology: The study used an exploratory cross-sectional study design. The sample size was N=60 out of which 30 were mother and 30 were fathers. The sample consisted of parents (both Gender), with at least one autistic child, parents’ Age range of was 18 years to 50 years, Divorced and Widowed family was excluded, Family with husband having more than one wife were excluded, Age of the autistic Child/Children range between 4 year- 26 years. Parental Burnout Assessment sub-scale (Emotional Exhaustion) was partially used as a survey questionnaire for data collection. Results: There was substantial variance found in the mean of emotional exhaustion in fathers was 13.73±9.80 and mean score in mothers was 18.46±13.61. 68% parents were less emotionally exhausted, 15% were moderately exhausted and 21% were high at emotional exhaustion. Conclusion: The current study conclusively showed that mothers were more emotionally exhausted than fathers.