Employment and financial burden of families with preschool children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders in urban China: results from a descriptive study

摘要

Background Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects many aspects of family life, such as social and economic burden. Little investigation of this phenomenon has been carried out in China. We designed this study to evaluate the employment and financial burdens of families with ASD-diagnosed preschoolers. Methods Four hundred and fifty-nine nuclear families of children with ASD, 418 with some other disability (OD) and 424 with typically developing (TD) children were recruited for this study. Employment and financial burdens of families were evaluated using a structured questionnaire; logistic regression was used to examine differences in job change measures by group, and ordinal logistic regression was used to investigate the association between household income and group. Results Fifty-eight percent of families with ASD children and 19% of families with OD children reported that childcare problems had greatly affected their employment decisions, compared with 9% of families with TD children (p? Conclusions ASD is associated with severe employment and financial burdens, much more than for OD, in families with preschool children.