The mediating role of perceived social support: alexithymia and parental burnout in parents of children with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

BackgroundParental burnout is a concept that reflects the emotional exhaustion and emotional distance of parents from children due to their inability to cope with the pressure of parenting. It has been confirmed that parents of autistic children are at higher risk for parental burnout. Additional research has suggested a relationship between parental burnout and parents’ personality traits. However, the relationship between alexithymia, an independent personality factor, with parental burnout is little to none.ObjectiveTo look into the connection between parental burnout and alexithymia among parents of autistic children.MethodThree hundred and one parents were approached for recruitment and data were collected from 203 parents through a cross-sectional survey assessing parental burnout, alexithymia status, and perceived social support. Because the data is not normally distributed, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient rho(p) was used to assess the correlation between the variables; and then using AMOS to analyze the mediating effects of perceived social support and the moderating effect of gender.ResultThe result showed that (1) There is a negative association between alexithymia with parental burnout (β = 0.6, p < 0.01), while perceive social support was the negative predictor of alexithymia (β = −0.45, p < 0.01) and parental burnout (β = −0.26, p < 0.01); (2) perceive social support partially mediated the relationship between alexithymia and parental burnout of parents of autistic children, which can explain 16.3% of the total effect; (3) Gender plays a moderating role in the first half of the indirect effect of alexithymia on parental burnout, as evidenced by the significant difference in path coefficients between the male and female models (male: β = −0.10, p < 0.05; female: β = −0.60, p < 0.05).ConclusionHealth professionals and policymakers should be aware of parental burnout among parents of autistic children in China and take early intervention steps. Furthermore, they should recognize the negative impact of alexithymia and the positive impact of social support when developing plans to alleviate parental burnout in children with autism, with a particular focus on mothers with alexithymia, who are more likely to experience low social support and burnout than fathers with alexithymia.

A systematic review of parental burnout and related factors among parents

“…Children ranged in age from 0 to 18, with the majority being typical between 0 and 6 years old. Two researchs study on parenting burnout in infants [ 30 , 34 ], five studies [ 16 , 18 , 29 , 33 , 51 ] on parenting burnout in parents of exceptional children, one study [ 48 ] on children with diabetes and one study on kids who needed ongoing pediatric outpatient care [ 32 ]. Seventeen research included both mothers and fathers, and nine studies [ 28 , 30 , 31 , 34 , 40 – 42 , 47 , 52 ] were conducted on a sample of just mothers from the general community.…”

“…Less educated parents and single parents reported higher parental burnout [ 36 , 46 ]. The higher the monthly income, the lighter the sense of parental burnout [ 33 ]. Parental factors such as parental personality (neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness) [ 29 , 40 , 43 ], internalization of maternal parental motivation [ 28 ], unmitigated communion [ 30 ], self-compassion and concern for others [ 32 ], alexithymia [ 33 ], anxiety and depressive symptoms [ 34 ], parental perfectionism [ 37 , 47 ], resilience [ 39 ], low self-esteem and high need for control [ 48 ], mother's attachment style [ 52 ] had a significant relationship with parental burnout among parents with at least a child.…”

“…Beyond that, childhood illness is also a risk factor for parenting burnout. In the case of children with autism [ 33 , 39 ], for example, the social and communication barriers associated with the disease lead to parenting burnout by affecting the interpersonal relationships between parents and children. Children’ behavior problems and negative parenting behaviors were significantly positively correlated to parental burnout by affecting parent–child communication [ 42 , 44 ].…”