Investigating traumatic stress in parents of autistic children in Denmark and Australia

Recent research has shown that a significant minority of parents of autistic children experience post-traumatic stress symptoms. However, trauma-related diagnoses such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD) are underrepresented in this population. Meta-analytic data conducted by Australian researchers indicates that parents of autistic children are most frequently diagnosed with depressive and/or anxiety-related disorders (31% and 33% respectively) and seldom diagnosed with PTSD in the context of their parenting experiences (Schnabel et al., 2020). Another recent Australian study found that 23.5% of parents with autistic children met or exceeded the clinical threshold on the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), in comparison to 17.3% of parents of children with a rare disease, and 0% of parents of neurotypical children (Stewart et al., 2020). This finding reflects the current global statistic that approximately 20% of those of the general population who experience a traumatic event will develop PTSD (Kessler et al., 2017). With the exception of the aforementioned Australian research, there is limited research exploring traumatic stress in parents of autistic children. To validate existing Australian empirical evidence, cross-cultural replication research which includes the utilisation of both larger samples and complementary sampling strategies and methodologies is needed.