Level of Hopelessness among Parents with Autistic Children

This study armed to investigate the level of hopelessness among parents with autistic children. The study also to identify whether the age of the chrkd and the level of eduction affect their level of hopelessness. The participants of this study consist of 33 parents with autistic children with their age ranging from 31 to 60 years old (with mean age 39 years and 5 months). Ten children were reported to be moderately autistic while 23 of them were severely autistic. Beck Hopelessness Scale is used to assess the level of hopelessness of parents with autistic children. The mean value of the level of hopelessness among parents with autistic children was 4.55 which mean that parent of autistic children were mildly affected by feeling of hopelessness. There is a large negative correlation between level of hopelessness among parents with autistic children (r = 0.616, p=0.001, p<0.05). But there no corelation bewteen age of the child and level of hopelessness (r = 0.078, p=0.666, p>0.05). Most of the parents with autistic children were mildly affected by feeling of hopelessness.