Literature on parents’ adjustment in families with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children highlights on one hand that raising a child with ASD represent a higher stressful experience comparing to families of children with other disabilities and families of children with typical development. On the other hand, a recent systematic review on relationship satisfaction of these parents stressed the very lower levels of couple satisfaction in parents raising a child with ASD. Give that, the aim of this study is to investigate the association between relationship satisfaction and parental stress in a sample of parents of ASD children.

70 parents were recruited (34 = M and 36 = F) to sign the following self-reports: Parenting stress index-short-form (PSI-SF), to assess stress relative to parental role, and dyadic adjustment scale (DAS), to assess couple satisfaction.

The analysis showed no differences between mothers and fathers respect to investigated variables. Negative correlations between almost all subscales of the PSI-SF and the subscales of DAS emerged. Moreover, from the regression analysis performed, it can be concluded that the values of the total score of the DAS predicts the PSI-SF total score.

In accordance with and building on the achievements of previous studies, these data illustrate a positive influence of couple adjustment on parental stress in parents of ASD children, supporting the hypothesis that relationship satisfaction emerge as a protective variables in the process of parental adaptation.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.