Expressed Emotion among Family Caregivers of Children with Autism

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social communication and social interactions with unusual responses to stimuli, restricted interests, and repetitive behaviors. Children with ASD have complex care needs and require a range of integrated services, including health promotion, personalized care, rehabilitation services, and collaboration with other sectors, such as the educational, occupational, and social sectors (Costa, Steffgen & Ferring, 2017). Caregivers of children with ASD reported more negative impact and poor psychological wellbeing. They appear to be at great risk for depression, stress, anxiety and distress. Also, Family caregivers of these children have to spend much energy and patience in managing the child's behavioral, emotional and health problems. They face different challenges arising from necessity of dealing with social consequences of the disabilities like potential threat of stigmatization (Townsend, 2015). Expressed emotion (EE) is a construct used to measure the emotional climate within families. EE is of interest to researchers in the field of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) because of its putative implications for