Examining The Interaction Between Parent Gender And Child Sex On Stress And Coping For Parents Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Parents of children with autism experience elevated stress, but coping strategies are used to manage stressors. Previous research in these areas uses measures not normed for this population with low representation of fathers, and it is unclear whether child sex and parent gender interact to impact stress and coping. Analyses were conducted to explore this interaction using responses from 501 mother-father dyads, using original and new factor-analytically derived subscales for parenting stress (i.e., PSI-SF) and coping (i.e., F-COPES). With the new subscales, fathers of female children reported lower stress for Child Limits than mothers. Additionally, mothers of male children reported higher stress for General Parental Distress, Behavioural Regulation, Child Limits, and Perceived Disagreeable Behaviour than fathers. This suggests that stress is experienced differently between mothers and fathers of female or male children with ASD. The new subscales may be more sensitive and clinically advantageous to identify specific stressors and strengths.