Evaluation of Mothers' Knowledge about Autism: Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Autism is an advanced neurogenic disease condition with specific neurodevelopmental characteristics and deficiency in social relations and interaction, as well as limited rhythmic and stereotyped patterns of actions that habitually arise in the toddler stage of life. Mothers of children with autism were found to have greater levels of childcare-associated stress. This study aims to determine mothers' general knowledge of autism. A cross-sectional study was conducted among the mothers of autistic children in Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, between 20 September and 20 December, 2019. The study included 63 mothers of autistic children. A 29-items questionnaire was created following a wide-ranging literature review. A pilot study was conducted on 20 mothers to assess the simplicity and understanding of the questionnaire. The data indicated that more than two thirds, i.e. 44(69.8%) of all respondents had a low level of or insufficient knowledge about autism, 19(30.2%) had a medium level, while none had a high level of knowledge. The results showed that the mother's job, the child's age, and the child order variables were important predictors, and the value was statistically significant at (α = 0.05) for the mothers' knowledge level. It could be concluded that Al Asha's mothers' children with autism lack the perception and knowledge of the signs and symptoms. Mothers were also found to need awareness programs for diagnosis and treatment approaches.

Assessment of knowledge,attitude and practices of parents having children with autism

“…Level of education and the mother's job. This result agreed with Mousa O., et al [27] who found that there was a highly statistically significant between total knowledge and the parent's age but there wasn't any statistical significance between other socio demographic characteristic of the parent having children with autism.…”

“…An increase in ASD prevalence is visible CDC ., [12] Care givers for autistic children were found to have a low level of knowledge about the disease. Because of the inadequate parents knowledge this have an impact of the parent practices and attitude toward their children with autism Mousa et al, [27].…”

Knowledge and attitude of Saudi women regarding autism

“…They reported that more than half of their participants, 52.6% were poor knowledge with nearly the same weakness areas. A recent Saudi study was conducted among autistic children mothers in Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, byMousa et al, (2021) found that 69.8% of all mothers had a low knowledge level and lacked perception about ASD. Another Saudi study was conducted byHaimour & Obaidat, (2013), their study revealed that general education teachers had a weak knowledge level about ASD while special education teachers had a good knowledge level.…”