Ethical and Pragmatic Issues of Quality of Life: Experience of Autistic Children’s Parents in Algiers

Abstract

Autism is a neuron developmental disorder complex that appears in early childhood, characterized by a general disorder of development, a disorder of social interactions, communication and some unusual behavioural characteristics. Specialists are constantly refining and improving their diagnostic criteria to establish an ideal classification that the scientific and medical community can use, two theoretical approaches are used: ICD-10 and DSM-5. All these symptoms affect the quality of life of parents on the plan: psychological, physical and social. In Algeria, the number of autistic cases is between 400,000 and 500,000. “There are three to four boys for every girl”. When a child is born with a disability, has a developmental delay or is diagnosed with autism, this causes major upheaval in the lives of the parents, who must learn to adapt to a “different” child, even if ‘they are worried about his well-being and his future. The purpose of this study is to measure the impact of autism on the parents’ quality of life in Algiers and the factors that influence them. The first theoretical part will review the conceptual framework of autism, the statistics available in Algeria, and, on the other hand, the conceptual framework of the quality of life, with its main components: physical, mental and social well-being. The second, practical part, we conducted a survey by parents of children with autism and then interpreted the results to determine the impact of a child autistic on the quality of life of parents. According to our study, there is a proportional relationship between the degree of autism severity and the repercussions on the parents’ health; we notice from the results (Sig =0.00<0.05) that there is a relationship between the type of autism and the impact on the parents’ physical health. The V Cramer test shows that there is a strong relationship. The survey was made from April 16, 2019, to May 5, 2019, intended for the 103 parents of autistic children who live in the region of Algiers.