Sobrecarga de cuidadores primarios de niños con trastorno del espectro autista en la provincia del Azuay, periodo 2022

Abstract

Caregiver overload is a state of physical and psychological exhaustion of those responsible for ensuring the well-being of people with disabilities. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) present a series of needs that must be attended to did by a responsible trained to perform the role. In this sense, this research aimed to identify the overload of primary caregivers of children with ASD. It had a quantitative, non-experimental, and, cross-sectional approach, whose scope was descriptive. Primary caregivers of children and adolescents from 4 to 17 years old diagnosed or suspected of having ASD who responded to the Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale were taken as reference. The reference data have been taken from the Project "Influence of the ethnic identity of caregivers in coping with behavioral difficulties in minors with ASD and in children with intellectual disabilities". The results showed that the priority of the caregivers did not present overload levels that require attention. Therefore, it was concluded that, at least for the reference population in this study, caring for a person with ASD is not necessarily related to representative levels of overload. Prospectively, it would be interesting if new research could investigate the protective factors of mental health and variables that would influence the overload of caregivers.