Universal Journal of Public Health Vol. 12(1), pp. 37 - 50
DOI: 10.13189/ujph.2024.120104
Reprint (PDF) (1201Kb)

An Investigation of the Effects of Chronic Stress on Attention in Parents of Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Maharishi Ranganathan ^1,*, Abin Jacob ¹, Ashifa Kariveliparambil Mohammed Ashraf ², Ganesh Kumar J ¹, Madalaimuthu Anthony ¹, Vijay M ¹, Rupashree Brahma Kumari ³, Sadananda Reddy Annapally ^4
1 Department of Psychology, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), India
² Department of Social Work, Faculty of Health Science, Istanbul Gelisim University, Turkey
³ School of Psychology, Gangadhar Meher University, India
⁴ Jindal School of Psychology and Counselling, Jindal Global University, India

ABSTRACT

Prolonged exposure to stress can cause impairments in various brain functions including cognition. Attention is one such important cognitive function that is required for our daily life and work-related activities. Chronic stress can have an impact on attention networks such as alerting, executive control, and orienting. The effects of naturalistic, persistent psychosocial stress on several attention networks were explored in this study. Parents of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) and parents of children with typical development (TD) were given an attention network test (ANT). Overall the stressed group (M= 564.623, SD= 75.484) was found to have a quicker reaction time in all the target and cue conditions when compared to the non-stressed group (M= 588.874, SD= 101.575). Both groups had similar accuracy in all the conditions. When comparing the three attention network scores, no significant difference was found in either group. However, in the stressed group, there was a significant beneficial relationship between the alerting and orienting networks (p=.006) and a high negative correlation between the alerting and executive control networks (p=.028). No significant correlation was found between the attention networks in the non-stressed group.

KEYWORDS
Chronic Stress, Attention Network, Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Typical Development

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Maharishi Ranganathan , Abin Jacob , Ashifa Kariveliparambil Mohammed Ashraf , Ganesh Kumar J , Madalaimuthu Anthony , Vijay M , Rupashree Brahma Kumari , Sadananda Reddy Annapally , "An Investigation of the Effects of Chronic Stress on Attention in Parents of Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders," Universal Journal of Public Health, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 37 - 50, 2024. DOI: 10.13189/ujph.2024.120104.

(b). APA Format:
Maharishi Ranganathan , Abin Jacob , Ashifa Kariveliparambil Mohammed Ashraf , Ganesh Kumar J , Madalaimuthu Anthony , Vijay M , Rupashree Brahma Kumari , Sadananda Reddy Annapally (2024). An Investigation of the Effects of Chronic Stress on Attention in Parents of Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Universal Journal of Public Health, 12(1), 37 - 50. DOI: 10.13189/ujph.2024.120104.