Parenting Self-Efficacy and Parent Mental Health Service Use Among Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background and Purpose

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently navigate complex service systems while managing substantial caregiving demands. In this context, parenting self-efficacy includes the confidence not only in caregiving but also in accessing and engaging with services. This aspect of parenting self-efficacy may influence how parents personally seek and use support services. Although self-efficacy is associated with engagement in child-focused services, its relationship to parents’ own help-seeking for mental health and family concerns remains underexplored. This study examined associations between parenting self-efficacy and parental service use.

Methods

Data were drawn from a cross-sectional survey of 385 parents of young children with autism (ages 18 months to 8 years). Parenting self-efficacy was operationalized using the FES Service System Subscale (7 items; higher mean scores indicate greater perceived ability to navigate services). Parent service use was measured using dichotomous items assessing whether respondents had received professional help for (1) stress, emotional, or mental health concerns or (2) couple or family issues in the past year. Descriptive statistics were stratified by parent gender. Binary logistic regression models estimated associations between self-efficacy and each outcome, adjusting for parent gender, race, education, parent age, child age, depressive symptoms, and work hours.

Results

Overall, 34.9% of parents reported receiving mental health-related help and 11.8% reported couple/family support. The sample was racially diverse, with 63.4% identifying as White, 29.1% as Black/African American, and 7.5% as Asian, Pacific Islander, or multiracial. Parenting self-efficacy was not associated with parent mental health service use (AOR = 1.24, 95% CI [0.80–1.93]) or couple/family help (AOR = 0.80, 95% CI [0.45–1.44]). Race was not significantly associated with either outcome in adjusted models. Mothers had lower odds of mental health service use than fathers (AOR = 0.45, p = .003), while higher depressive symptoms were associated with greater likelihood of service use (AOR = 2.91, p < .001).

Conclusions

Parenting self-efficacy in navigating child-serving systems was not associated with parents’ own help-seeking. Instead, service use was more strongly driven by psychological distress. These findings suggest that confidence in managing child-related services may not extend to seeking support for personal or relational needs. These findings highlight the need for targeted interventions to support caregiver mental health and reduce barriers to accessing services, even among parents who are otherwise effective in navigating systems for their children.