Association Between Autism Severity, Parental Stress, and Parenting Styles in Indian Families of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Cross-Sectional Study.

PURPOSE: Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face persistent emotional, psychological, and social challenges. Cultural stigma and limited resources in India may add to this burden. This study examined the association between parental stress, parenting styles, and ASD severity in Indian families.

METHODS

We recruited 63 parents of children aged 3-12 years with a clinically confirmed diagnosis of ASD (DSM-5 criteria) between November 2023 and January 2024 through Autism Community Support Groups. Of these, 60 were included in the final analysis after excluding three cases with missing data. Data were collected using a socio-demographic proforma, the Parental Stress Scale, and the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire-Short Version. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS Statistics version 23.0. Given violations of the normality assumption, non-parametric analyses were employed: the Kruskal-Wallis H test with Mann-Whitney U pairwise comparisons assessed differences in parental stress across severity levels, and Spearman's rank-order correlation examined associations between stress and parenting styles.

RESULTS

Parental stress differed significantly across ASD severity levels, H (2) = 21.397, p < .001. Parents of children with mild ASD reported the lowest stress (M = 57.24, SD = 4.72), followed by moderate ASD (M = 62.73, SD = 5.46) and severe ASD (M = 68.00, SD = 4.58). Pairwise comparisons indicated that parents of children with mild ASD reported significantly lower stress than those with moderate ASD (U = 129.00, p = .002) and severe ASD (U = 10.00, p < .001). Parental stress was positively correlated with authoritarian parenting style (rs = .314, p = .014), while no significant associations were found with authoritative or permissive styles.

CONCLUSIONS

ASD severity is significantly associated with higher parental stress among Indian families. Parental stress was positively associated with an authoritarian parenting style. These findings highlight the need for culturally responsive, family-centered interventions that address both child symptom severity and parental well-being.