Quality of life: a key variable to consider in the evaluation of adjustment in parents of children with autism spectrum disorders and in the development of relevant support and assistance programmes.

Purpose: Our primary objective was to identify cognitive and behavioural profiles that affect adjustment, in order to make relevant recommendations about support and assistance for parents of autistic children.

Method: One hundred and sixty French parents completed a battery of questionnaires and self-report measures developed or adapted to assess (1) the child and family situations; (2) perceived stress; (3) perceived social support; (4) perceived control; (5) coping strategies; and (6) quality of life.

Results: The psychometric properties of the instruments we used proved to be adequate. Our results support the pre-existing data and our findings may prove to be of interest to clinicians. Our primary finding was that emotion-focused coping strategies seem to be less effective. Parents who employed emotion-focused strategies were more stressed and more disturbed in most parts of their life. They also experienced more guilt and reported more false beliefs about PDD.

Conclusions: Our data underscore the need for psychoeducation programmes for parents, focused on handling stress and emotions, modifying false beliefs and solving the daily problems that arise from PDD. We propose a 5-axis intervention model for parents of children with PDD, based on cognitive-behavioural therapies and on a stress management programme.