Knowledge and attitude of Saudi women regarding autism

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder causing family stress. Increasing awareness about ASD will improve the mothers' engagement with their children and help them bear the stress effect of this disorder. Aim: To evaluate Saudi women's knowledge and attitude regarding ASD at Tabuk University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Design: Descriptive design was utilized to fulfill the purpose of the study. Setting: This study was done at 5 colleges of Tabuk University, with a female section (applied medical sciences, science, medicine, business administration, computing and information technology) representing 25% of Tabuk University colleges. Sample: A convenience sample of women in the previous colleges (90) was taken according to inclusion criteria. Three data collection tools were used; 1) A self-administrated questionnaire sheet, including sociodemographic data. 2) Knowledge quiz 3) ASD attitude scale: to assess the attitude of women as regards ASD. Results: The participants mean age was 36.23 years, and although 52.2 % of women were inadequate knowledge, more than half of participants 53.3% were positive attitude regarding ASD. A statistically positive correlation is between the participants' knowledge and their attitude. Social status, educational level & women's work experience are significantly related to their knowledge about ASD (p< 0.05). Conclusion: Inadequate knowledge regarding ASD was prevalent among the current study participants. At the same time, most of them had a positive attitude toward ASD. Therefore, health education campaigns must be enhanced to improve knowledge and attitude about ASD.