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Efficacy of coping mechanisms used during COVID-19 as reported by parents of children with autism

The COVID-19 pandemic’s alterations to daily life have been especially challenging for families with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), worsening the core features of ASD and overall mental health. With the increased need for effective coping, the current retrospective study used data from a survey reg...

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Autores principales: Wang, Florence, Memis, Idil, Durocher, Jennifer S., Furar, Emily, Cavalcante, Leylane, Eshraghi, Rebecca S., Samson, Andrea C., Van Herwegen, Jo, Dukes, Daniel, Alessandri, Michael, Mittal, Rahul, Eshraghi, Adrien A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10101447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37053138
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283494
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author Wang, Florence
Memis, Idil
Durocher, Jennifer S.
Furar, Emily
Cavalcante, Leylane
Eshraghi, Rebecca S.
Samson, Andrea C.
Van Herwegen, Jo
Dukes, Daniel
Alessandri, Michael
Mittal, Rahul
Eshraghi, Adrien A.
author_facet Wang, Florence
Memis, Idil
Durocher, Jennifer S.
Furar, Emily
Cavalcante, Leylane
Eshraghi, Rebecca S.
Samson, Andrea C.
Van Herwegen, Jo
Dukes, Daniel
Alessandri, Michael
Mittal, Rahul
Eshraghi, Adrien A.
author_sort Wang, Florence
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic’s alterations to daily life have been especially challenging for families with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), worsening the core features of ASD and overall mental health. With the increased need for effective coping, the current retrospective study used data from a survey regarding parent reports of how often their child with ASD used certain coping strategies (frequency), as well as the extent to which they felt their child benefitted from their use (efficacy) in mitigating stress during the pandemic. This retrospective study Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate whether there were significant differences in both frequency and efficacy ratings for each coping strategy, for the entire sample as well as for three children’s age groups. Using Spearman’s rank-order correlations, correlation coefficients between the frequency and efficacy of each coping strategy were explored. Results revealed that maladaptive strategies were used more frequently than adaptive strategies, while parent routine as the most frequently used and efficacious for all age groups. Additionally, for adaptive strategies, humor and focusing on the positive had the strongest correlations between frequency and efficacy ratings amongst all age groups. Of the maladaptive strategies, repetitive behaviors, rumination, and isolation had the strongest correlations for the youngest, middle, and oldest age groups, respectively. Further, for each age group, the adaptive coping strategies had stronger correlations between frequency and efficacy than the maladaptive ones. It is our hope that the results of this study will lay the foundation for developing adaptive coping strategies to alleviate stress in children with ASD. Further investigations using a larger cohort are warranted to determine effective coping strategies for individuals with ASD across a range of situations, including acute stressors (such as future public health emergencies and natural disasters), as well as common daily stressors.
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spelling pubmed-101014472023-04-14 Efficacy of coping mechanisms used during COVID-19 as reported by parents of children with autism Wang, Florence Memis, Idil Durocher, Jennifer S. Furar, Emily Cavalcante, Leylane Eshraghi, Rebecca S. Samson, Andrea C. Van Herwegen, Jo Dukes, Daniel Alessandri, Michael Mittal, Rahul Eshraghi, Adrien A. PLoS One Research Article The COVID-19 pandemic’s alterations to daily life have been especially challenging for families with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), worsening the core features of ASD and overall mental health. With the increased need for effective coping, the current retrospective study used data from a survey regarding parent reports of how often their child with ASD used certain coping strategies (frequency), as well as the extent to which they felt their child benefitted from their use (efficacy) in mitigating stress during the pandemic. This retrospective study Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate whether there were significant differences in both frequency and efficacy ratings for each coping strategy, for the entire sample as well as for three children’s age groups. Using Spearman’s rank-order correlations, correlation coefficients between the frequency and efficacy of each coping strategy were explored. Results revealed that maladaptive strategies were used more frequently than adaptive strategies, while parent routine as the most frequently used and efficacious for all age groups. Additionally, for adaptive strategies, humor and focusing on the positive had the strongest correlations between frequency and efficacy ratings amongst all age groups. Of the maladaptive strategies, repetitive behaviors, rumination, and isolation had the strongest correlations for the youngest, middle, and oldest age groups, respectively. Further, for each age group, the adaptive coping strategies had stronger correlations between frequency and efficacy than the maladaptive ones. It is our hope that the results of this study will lay the foundation for developing adaptive coping strategies to alleviate stress in children with ASD. Further investigations using a larger cohort are warranted to determine effective coping strategies for individuals with ASD across a range of situations, including acute stressors (such as future public health emergencies and natural disasters), as well as common daily stressors. Public Library of Science 2023-04-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10101447/ /pubmed/37053138 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283494 Text en © 2023 Wang et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wang, Florence
Memis, Idil
Durocher, Jennifer S.
Furar, Emily
Cavalcante, Leylane
Eshraghi, Rebecca S.
Samson, Andrea C.
Van Herwegen, Jo
Dukes, Daniel
Alessandri, Michael
Mittal, Rahul
Eshraghi, Adrien A.
Efficacy of coping mechanisms used during COVID-19 as reported by parents of children with autism
title Efficacy of coping mechanisms used during COVID-19 as reported by parents of children with autism
title_full Efficacy of coping mechanisms used during COVID-19 as reported by parents of children with autism
title_fullStr Efficacy of coping mechanisms used during COVID-19 as reported by parents of children with autism
title_full_unstemmed Efficacy of coping mechanisms used during COVID-19 as reported by parents of children with autism
title_short Efficacy of coping mechanisms used during COVID-19 as reported by parents of children with autism
title_sort efficacy of coping mechanisms used during covid-19 as reported by parents of children with autism
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10101447/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37053138
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283494
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