ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Autism
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1613340
Relationship Between Family Functioning and Affiliate Stigma in Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in China: The Mediating Role of Positive Aspects of Caregiving
Provisionally accepted
- Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The present research was conducted to examine whether family functioning is related to affiliate stigma in Chinese caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and how positive aspects of caregiving affect this relationship. Two hundred and six caregivers of children with ASD were investigated using the Family APGAR scale, the Affiliate Stigma scale, and the Chinese version of the Positive Aspects of Caregiving scale. The results indicated that family functioning and positive aspects of caregiving were negatively associated with affiliate stigma and that family functioning was positively correlated with positive aspects of caregiving. Furthermore, positive aspects of caregiving partially mediated family functioning and affiliate stigma. These findings suggest that family functioning can directly influence the affiliate stigma of caregivers of children with ASD and indirectly influence affiliate stigma through positive aspects of caregiving.
Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder, parents of children with ASD, caregiver, family functioning, Affiliate stigma, positive aspects of caregiving, Mediating effect
Received: 17 Apr 2025; Accepted: 24 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Du, Su, Ding, Zhu, Sun, Wang, Xiao and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiangdan Su, Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
Haiping Xu, Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.