Aims and objectives: To assess and compare the burden of care in caregivers of patients with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Specic Learning
Disability
To assess and compare psychiatric morbidities and caregiver burden in caregivers of patients with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Specic
Learning Disability.
To study the burden with relation to socio-demographic characteristics
Material and method: Participants were divided into 2 study group of 40 participants each. Socio-demographic data for both care-givers and
patients were collected via a semi-structured interview involving the care-givers of patients who attended the hospital's outpatient department. The
care-giver burden will be measured with the Family Burden Interview Schedule (FBIS) and Psychiatric morbidities were measured by General
Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28).
Result: The study was carried out to compare the burden of care and psychiatric. In our study socio-demographic characteristics like marital status,
family income, and locality showed statistically signicant differences between the two groups.
Psychiatric morbidities were statistically signicantly higher in caregivers of ASD in all four domains i.e, somatic symptoms, anxiety/insomnia,
social dysfunction and depression. We found the burden of care to be statistically signicantly higher in the ASD group on all domains except
Financial burden, namely Disruption of routine family activities, Disruption of family leisure, Disruption of family interactions, Effect on physical
health and Effect on mental health.
conclusion: In our study we have found both burden of care and psychiatric morbidity to be higher in caregivers of ASD children as compared to
caregivers of SLD children. This was consistent with our hypothesis that burden of care has strong positive correlation with psychiatric morbidity
in caregiver.
CARE-GIVER BURDEN IN AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER AND SPECIFIC LEARNING DISABILITY- A COMPARATIVE STUDY