Quality of Life of Caregivers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Tamil Nadu, South India

Objectives: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, including deficits in social reciprocity and nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction. Caregiving children with ASD have both positive and negative outcomes on the caregiver's quality of life (QOL). Our study assessed the QOL of caregivers of children with ASD. Methods: Quantitative research approach and non-experimental descriptive cross-sectional research design were used. 120 caregivers of children with Autism spectrum disorder were selected. WHOQoL-BREF was used to assess the QOL of caregivers. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 21 software. Results: The study reported that 59.1% of the caregivers had poor QOL in the psychological domain and 56.6% of the caregivers had poor QOL in the physical domain. However, concerning both the social domain and the environmental domain, caregivers had an average QOL that is 42.5% and 45%, respectively. The caregiver's QOL as based on the duration of child care showed a significant difference in the QOL under the psychological and environmental domains. There was no significant difference in the QOL of caregivers based on their age under the environmental domain. Conclusion: Therefore, the study has provided collective evidence of the QOL under each domain and provides a need for sustainable need-based interventions that could improve the QOL of caregivers of children with Autism spectrum disorder.