**2. Methodology**

#### **2.1 Literature search strategy**

A literature search was conducted between 5th and 7th August 2021 from Scopus, Dimensions.ai, and Google Scholar databases, and citation tracking using keywords, titles, and abstracts; applying a limit to the search results, and finally extracting the full-text articles. Articles were retrieved using the following search terms (**Table 1**). Articles with missing information were requested from their corresponding authors.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram shows the article selection process. Separate literature searches returned a total of 819 articles (**Figure 1**).

#### **2.2 Selecting relevant studies**

The inclusion and exclusion criteria are shown in **Table 2**. All the qualitative and quantitative studies done in Malaysia and published as primary articles with empirical data or conference proceedings were included. Samples that included the parenting of, or parents and/or children with autism spectrum disorder were excluded, on the basis that they would need unique parenting [22]. The timeline spans two decades (2002–2021) due to the scarcity of literature. Subsequently, only publications in English or Malay articles were selected to ensure proper translation by the authors. This screening based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria excluded 148 articles.

The remaining 205 articles were then examined based on their relevance to the research questions. At the end of this process, 56 articles were included in the review. Selected papers were imported into Mendeley Desktop 1.19.8 following assessment of their full texts. Summaries of each article were categorised into


#### **Table 1.**

*The search string used in respective databases.*

#### **Figure 1.**

*PRISMA flow diagram, depicting the article selection process.*


#### **Table 2.**

*Inclusion and exclusion criteria.*

authors' details, objectives, sample characteristics, study design, and key findings (see Appendix). The data from these articles are then extracted using a narrative and an analytic approach, which involves synthesising and interpreting data according to key issues and themes.
