Vivendo com crianças autistas no Brasil: revisão sistemática

Resumo

Introduction: The autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) is considered a neuropsychiatric syndrome characterized by isolation and immutability of behaviour. A child with this disorder need special attention and care from their family and the healthcare, educational, and social systems, as it involves severe and early changes in socialization, communication and cognition.

Objective: To describe the challenges faced by families caring for children with ASD in Brazil and the overcoming strategies employed.

Methodology or experience description: Systematic review of systematic and non- systematic reviews, qualiquantitative and qualitative studies and case reports published up to September 2013, without language restrictions, in Medline, VHL Portal, SciELO and Cochrane, CAPES journals Ministry of Health, Datasus , IBGE and references of included articles. Duplicate and independent article selection, data extraction, and quality appraisal was employed.

Results: We included 10 studies with moderate to high methodological quality,published in Brazil’s South and Southeastern regionsThe literature shows parent emotional overload as one of the main challenges faced by families.The main stressors were diagnostic postponement,difficulty dealing with the diagnosis and symptoms,poor access to health services and social support,lack of recreational or educational,financial situation and concerns with the future of the children.Overcoming strategies were:exchanging information among affected families,provision of integrated health,educational,and social care for the child and the family,access to recreational activities,and religious belief.

Conclusions or Hypothesis: ASD exerts strongly influence family dynamics bringing strong stressors and coping strategies. In Brazil, societal and system hurdles are being recognized and solutions are been built but furthersteps remain to be taken for the meaningful integration of this population into society.