Marital Disturbance and Object Relations in Mothers of Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): The Mediating Role of Psychological Coherence

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Mothers of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more likely to be at risk of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic, phobias, mood disorders, depression, psychological cohesion, low object relations, and marital disturbance in the family, which generally starts before their children's birth; hence, the presents research aimed to investigate the marital disturbance and object relations in mothers of children with spectrum disorder with the mediating role of psychological cohesion.. Methods: The research method was cross-sectional and correlational. The statistical population consisted of all the mothers of children with autism in Tehran in 2020 among whom 457 mothers were selected by the convenience sampling method. The research tools included the marital disturbance questionnaire (Schneider, 1997), object relations questionnaire (Bell, 1995), and psychological coherence questionnaire (Kimiaei et al., 2014) all of which had acceptable validity and reliability. SPSS V.23 and LISREL V7.8 were used to analyze data. Structural equation modeling was utilized to respond to the research hypotheses. Results: The research results indicated that the model had a good fit, and there was a relationship between object relations and marital disturbance in mothers of children with an autism spectrum disorder. There was also a relationship between psychological cohesion and marital disturbance in mothers of children with an autism spectrum disorder. There was an indirect effect of object relations on marital disturbance through the mediating role of psychological cohesion in mothers of children with an autism spectrum disorder (p<0.05). Conclusion: Paying attention to the above-mentioned variables helps researchers and therapists to prevent and design more suitable treatments.