Abstract

Background: Autism spectrum disease (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopment disorder. There is no single definitive cause of the disease, however, several prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal factors are supposed as risk factors for having a child with ASD. This study aims to identify the association between some of these factors and the prevalence of ASD.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional comparative study that involved 60 patients typically diagnosed with ASD and 60 healthy children matched with the cases group. The parents of the children in both groups are the target of the interview and questionnaire.

Results: The study showed a higher male to female ratio in the ASD group. Family history of ASD was reported in 41.8% of the ASD group and 11.7% in the healthy group. Several prenatal risk factors including being a negative smoker, preserving follow-up visits, and experiencing psychological stress were associated with nearly 12, 18, and 60 folds greater risk of having a child with ASD, respectively. Most of the postnatal factors were also significantly associated with increased AASD risk (p-value< 0.05). Whilst, the perinatal factors were not significant. The parental factors: parents' age more than 30 years and lower level of education were significant risk factors and associated with 4 and 16 folds greater risk, respectively.

Conclusion: This study confirms a high prevalence of some prenatal and postnatal factors among children with ASD. This suggests possible effective interventions to decrease the prevalence of ASD.

Keywords: ASD, Prenatal, Postnatal.

 

 

 

Title

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

Publisher

An-Najah National University

Publisher Country

Palestine

Indexing

Scopus

Impact Factor

None

Publication Type

Prtinted only

Volume

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Year

--

Pages

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