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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Autism
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1409294
This article is part of the Research Topic COVID and Autism 2023: Lessons Learnt and Future Directions for Research View all 9 articles

Brief Report: Caregivers' wellbeing in families with neurodevelopmental disorders members during COVID-19: Implications for family therapy

Provisionally accepted
Daniela Sousa Daniela Sousa 1Ana Ferreira Ana Ferreira 1Joana Sequeira Joana Sequeira 2Marilyn Monteiro Marilyn Monteiro 1Marco Simoes Marco Simoes 1,3Miguel Castelo-Branco Miguel Castelo-Branco 1*
  • 1 Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT), Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
  • 2 Instituto Superior Miguel Torga, Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
  • 3 Center of Informatics and Systems, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Neurodevelopmental disorders affect the lifespan of diagnosed individuals and their families. COVID-19 challenged these families with daily routine unpredictability requiring rapid adaptations. Moreover, associations and schools were closed, leaving these families without regular social support. Here, we investigate which individual and family factors can predict the caregiver's depressive state and overall burden. An online study took place between 2021 and 2022. 32 caregivers (30 females; 48±8.22 years old; range 26 to 63 years old) reported having a family member with a neurodevelopmental disorder, the majority diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Caregivers responded to a protocol to assess the burden, resilience, depressive, anxious, and stress symptomatology, as well as the behavior of the diagnosed individual. Hierarchical multiple regressions were performed to identify protective and risk factors for the caregivers' wellbeing. Caregiver's depressive state was explained by 29.3% of the variance of the family cohesion factor, indicating that high levels of balanced family cohesion represent a crucial protective factor for reducing caregiver's depressive state. Additionally, overall caregiver burden was explained by 17.8% of the variance due to self-perception and 26.4% due to family cohesion, with the caregiver's self-perception playing an important protective role in the overall perception of burden. The proportion of male and female respondents seems to corroborate the significant role of women in caregiving. These results emphasize the importance of considering both individual and family factors of caregivers during interventions, which have implications for family therapy with families of members diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders, specifically with autism.

    Keywords: COVID-19, autism, Neurodevelopmental disorders, Caregivers wellbeing, Family Therapy

    Received: 29 Mar 2024; Accepted: 01 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Sousa, Ferreira, Sequeira, Monteiro, Simoes and Castelo-Branco. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Miguel Castelo-Branco, Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT), Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.