Assess the knowledge on home care management of autistic children among caregivers

Autism is a developmental disability, with symptoms (cid:977)irst observed during infancy. It is characterized by variants in communication abilities, personal-ity, cognitive abilities and social skills. Typical behaviour in youngsters relies upon kid’s age character and physical and enthusiastic turn of events. A kid’s conduct is said to be average at his 7 th year of age when he develops a concept of himself, begins to understand, gains respect for others, and develops a sense of responsibility. Children with autism tend to have poor social and emotional relationships with peers and are highly sensitive and perform rit-ualistic behaviours. As a primary responsibility and also an essential thing for the mothers/ caregivers is to understand their children’s behaviours than mothers of typically developing children. Accurate knowledge of autism may aid parents in relating to their children’s problematic behaviours. Accepting autism may promote feelings of parenting success. The present study aims to assess the knowledge on home care management of autistic children among caregivers. A quantitative non-experimental descriptive research design was conducted among 50 caregivers of autistic children. Non-probability conve-nient sampling technique was used to select samples. A self-structured ques-tionnaire was used to collect demographic data, and their knowledge was assessed. The study results show most of the caregivers had moderately adequate knowledge regarding home care management of their autistic children and this emphasizes the need to educate them in understanding their children behaviour and their needs and improve the quality of life of their autistic children.

ABSTRACT Autism is a developmental disability, with symptoms irst observed during infancy. It is characterized by variants in communication abilities, personality, cognitive abilities and social skills. Typical behaviour in youngsters relies upon kid's age character and physical and enthusiastic turn of events. A kid's conduct is said to be average at his 7 th year of age when he develops a concept of himself, begins to understand, gains respect for others, and develops a sense of responsibility. Children with autism tend to have poor social and emotional relationships with peers and are highly sensitive and perform ritualistic behaviours. As a primary responsibility and also an essential thing for the mothers/ caregivers is to understand their children's behaviours than mothers of typically developing children. Accurate knowledge of autism may aid parents in relating to their children's problematic behaviours. Accepting autism may promote feelings of parenting success. The present study aims to assess the knowledge on home care management of autistic children among caregivers. A quantitative non-experimental descriptive research design was conducted among 50 caregivers of autistic children. Non-probability convenient sampling technique was used to select samples. A self-structured questionnaire was used to collect demographic data, and their knowledge was assessed. The study results show most of the caregivers had moderately adequate knowledge regarding home care management of their autistic children and this emphasizes the need to educate them in understanding their children behaviour and their needs and improve the quality of life of their autistic children.

INTRODUCTION
Autism is a neural improvement issue described by weakened social collaboration and correspondence and have limited and dull behaviour. These signs start before a child is three years old (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
Typical behaviour in youngsters relies upon kid's age character and physical and enthusiastic turn of events. A kid's conduct is said to be normal at his 7 th year of age when he develops a concept of himself, begins to understand, gains respect for others, and develops a sense of responsibility (Stefanatos, 2008).
The commonness of autism is around 1-2 for every 1,000 individuals, and the pervasiveness of ASD is around 6 for each 1,000, with around four-fold the number of guys as females. Since 1980 the quantity of individuals determined to have autism has expanded impressively and halfway this is because of the progressions in symptomatic practice. The indications of mental imbalance step by step grow, however, sometimes irst grow all the more ordinarily and afterwards regress (Sigman et al., 2004).
Autism is mainly a neurodevelopmental condition that ordinarily shows subjective socio-open impedance and con ined generalized interests and exercises. Even though a considerable extent of youngsters with autism show unusual advancement during the primary year of life, 15-62% of them show a relapse somewhere in the range of 18 and 24 old enough after a time of clearly normal development. (Kaur et al., 2015) Autistic babies show less regard for social improvements and grin. The less frequently take a gander at others and react less when they were tended to by their name. Medically introverted babies vary all the more strikingly from accepted practices like they have less eye to eye connection and turn-taking, and are bound to impart by controlling someone else's hand. But they do develop an attachment to their primary caregivers (Nikadib, 2018).
Numerous pregnancies and obstetric complications have been related in a few examinations to more danger of autism. (Chiri and War ield, 2011) Children with autism are more at risk for developing many due to expressive communication dif iculties. Late meta-investigations underline the job of cutting edge maternal and paternal age, gestational diseases, low birth weight, fetal hypoxia, preterm birth, and labour complications in the pathogenesis of autism. There is as yet a discussion in universal writing about some perinatal hazard factors, for instance, it isn't clear if there is a relationship among mental imbalance and neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. (Minolin et al., 2019) Caregivers of kids with ASD are accounted to have variable encounters in regards to the effect of medical procedures and its management of their kids. Most of the parental caregivers have noticed that administration arrangements don't live up to their desires and have asserted that the administration gave by the health care services is the origin of stress (Karst and Hecke, 2012) .
An examination led among kids of 18 to 26 months uncovered that one in every 625 Malaysian kids has Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Medical and educational practitioners have witnessed a rising number of kids with speech delay and speech troubles. This requires extensive evaluation via prepared clinicians and which bolsters the thought that the genuine commonness rate is likely a lot higher. (Braiden et al., 2010) Caregivers of kids with Autistic Spectrum Disorder are encountering in the various ways identiied with medical procedures and its management of their mentally unbalanced children. (Braiden et al., 2010) Most of the guardians have detailed that administration arrangements don't live up to their desires and guaranteed that the encounters prompt worry because of the administration gave by the health care system.According to the latest National Health System Review (NHSR), a study on caregivers' satisfaction is highly recommended and essential for improving the ef iciency of the current services (Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC), 2019). Therefor the purpose of the study is to assess the knowledge on home care management of autistic children among caregivers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A quantitative approach with non-experimental research design was used to conduct the study at Saveetha Medical College Hospital. Fifty samples were selected using a non-probability convenience sampling technique. The criteria for sample selection are caregivers of children aged less than three years, and caregivers are willing to participate in the study. The exclusion criteria for the samples are caregivers who were medical professionals and who were illiterate. The data collection period was done with prior permission. The purpose of the study was explained to the samples and written informed consent was obtained from them. The demographic data were collected using a self-structured questionnaire, and the knowledge of the caregivers was assessed with the questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The sample characteristics were described using frequency and percentage. Chi-square test was used to associate the level of knowledge of the caregivers with the selected demographic variables.

Section B: Level of knowledge among caregivers on home care management of autistic children.
Most of the caregivers 32(90%) had moderately adequate knowledge, 16(32%) had inadequate knowledge, and 2(4%) had adequate knowledge on home care management of autistic children.  The mean score of knowledge was 86.80, with standard deviation 18.31 with a minimum score of 50.0 and a maximum score of 130.0. (Table 2) A study conducted by Anwar.et.al Supports the present study inding, to assess the knowledge, awareness, and perceptions regarding autism among parents in Karachi, Pakistan. From the study population, 75% of our population had heard of autism, with those who knew of someone with the disorder displaying greater awareness. However, the participants displayed poor knowledge scores, with a mean score of 5.59 in the section concerning correct opinions on autism and that of 6.84 in the section testing knowledge of signs and symptoms. Despite this, 95.6% of the participants were willing to get their children treated, in the event of them being diagnosed with autism. (Anwar et al., 2018) A study conducted by Parvin. Supports the present study inding who investigated on knowledge on the care of autistic kids among the mother's going to Protibondhi Foundation, Dhaka. The investigation uncovered that the information about autistic is low, the information demonstrated that solitary two sorts of autistic they knew and the respondent's information about the hazard factor was likewise exceptionally low; just 24% of the respondents knew about entanglements during pregnancy and conveyance related hazard factors. (haque Parvin et al., 2015) Section C: Association of the level of knowledge with selected demographic variables.
The present study depicts that none of the demographic variables had shown a statistically significant association with the level of knowledge on home care management of autistic children among caregivers at p<0.05 level.

CONCLUSIONS
From the result of the study, it was concluded that caregivers of autistic children need to be given education on understanding autistic children, their needs and communication and also promote factors that would increase caregiver's satisfaction which helps them to provide quality care to their autistic children and improve their quality of life.