Development of an Indigenous Parental Perceived Stress Scale for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

The major aim of this study was to develop an indigenous Parental Perceived Stress Scale in Urdu for parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The research was divided into two phases: In Phase-I, indigenous Parental Perceived Stress Scale was developed and in Phase-II, psychometric properties of the scale were established. An item pool of 46 items was generated based on the Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) stress model and interviewing the parents having children with ASD. A purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample of 502 parents from different special educational institutes. Generated items were evaluated by a panel of experts and were pilot tested on 25 parents. Exploratory factor analysis fixed to seven factor structure with 42 items. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded 32 item scale revealing Cronbach alpha of .95 indicating the scale as a reliable and valid scale for the measurement of parental perceived stress for parents of children with ASD. Clinical implications of the study indicate its use for counseling and clinical services.