Daily Stress and Negative Affect among Mothers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: The Role of Psychological Resilience

Background: As a result of the challenges associated with raising a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), mothers typically report elevated levels of psychological distress. Studies have found that individual differences in psychological resilience contribute to successful adaptation to stress. Psychological resilience includes personality variables such as optimism, locus of control, and satisfaction with life.

Objectives: To investigate the relationship between stress and negative among mothers of children with ASD utilizing a daily diary methodology. In addition, the protective role of global psychological resilience will be examined to explain the individual differences in the stress and negative affect relationship.

Methods: Participants consisted of 49 mothers with a child with ASD. Mothers completed the following questionnaires on a daily basis for 30 consecutive days: Positive and Negative Affect Scales (PANAS), Daily Negative Life Events Scale, Daily Autism-Related Stress Scale, Life Orientation Test (LOT), Satisfaction with Life (SWL), and Control of Internal States (CIS).

Results: Analyses revealed that daily negative affect was associated with daily life stress (r = .67, p < .001) and daily autism-related stress (r = .43, p < .01). Global optimism (r = -.36, p < .01), control of internal states (r = -.294, p < .05), and life satisfaction (r = -.32, p < .05) were significantly related to daily negative affect. Simple linear regression analyses also found similar results. Results of the moderation analyses found that the interactions of daily life stress and global optimism (B = -.15, p < .05) and daily life stress and control of internal states (B = -.12, p < .001) were significant. The interactions involving daily autism-related stress and global psychological resilience variables were non-significant. Multilevel modeling using Hierarchical Linear Modeling software will be conducted to confirm these preliminary findings.

Conclusions: Findings confirm that daily stress predicts daily well-being among mothers of children with ASD. Specifically, higher levels of both life and autism-related stress predict higher levels of negative affect. Further, we also found that global psychological resilience can help protect against the negative effects of stress. Mothers who report high levels of daily stress and high levels of optimism report lower levels of negative affect as compared to those who report high levels of daily stress and low levels of optimism. In addition, mothers who report high daily stress and high global control report lower levels of negative affect as compared to those with high daily stress and low control. These findings suggest that dispositional psychological resilience may be beneficial for chronically stress mothers.