Investigation into level of burnout and coping wi̇thout stress of mothers having children wi̇thout austin and mothers with healthy children

Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disorder whose cause is not fully known and is caused by difficulties and abnormalities occurring in different areas. Children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder may not show the same features. It may differ according to the degree. This diagnosis was first introduced to the literature by Leo Kanner in 1943. The mothers of children with autism spectrum disorders do not know how their children will behave in the face of the problems they face, and how they cannot predict the extent to which these problems affect their lives. It is aimed to examine the burnout levels of mothers of children diagnosed with ASD disorder in Istanbul province and mothers of children with a diagnosis of ASD disorder. Within the scope of the study, a face-to-face interview technique was applied to 141 persons who were diagnosed with ASD disorder and living in Istanbul, who have healthy children. The data were collected using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, developed by Maslach and Jackson (1981), to measure the burnout experienced by mothers, and the Turkish form of the symptom list developed by DasGupta (1992; cited in Hovardaoğlu, 1997) intended to detect stress symptoms as well as the Demographic Information Form prepared by the researcher. Among the findings obtained within the scope of the study, it is noteworthy that participants with children with autism spectrum disorder had higher emotional burnout scores and these participants were more exhausted than other participants. It was concluded that mothers of children with ASD disorder experienced more burnout, but children who were not diagnosed with ASD disorder coped better with stress than their mothers.