Investigating the Effectiveness of Group Positive Psychotherapy on Parenting Stress among Mothers of Children with down criteria

Abstract

Mothers of children with Down syndrome face challenges which lead to increased parenting stress among these mothers. The present research was conducted by the aim of investigating the effectiveness of group positive psychotherapy on parenting stress among mothers of children with Down syndrome. in the frame of a semi-experimental study with pretest-posttest-follow up with control group design. Among mothers of children with down syndrome referring to Navide Asr extensive rehabilitation center in Tehran in 2018, a sample of 40 subjects were selected by purposeful sampling method and were assigned into experiment and control groups through random assignment method. In pretest, posttest and follow up stages, the participants of both groups completed Abidin’s Parenting Stress Index- Short Form(PSI-SF). Sessions of group weekly positive psychotherapy were held in eight 90-minute sessions for the participants of the experiment group, but the control group participants received no intervention until the end of the follow up stage. Variance analysis test with repeated measures in SPSSv20 was used for analyzing the data. results suggested that positive psychotherapy significantly decreased parenting stress among mothers of the intervention group and the results were sufficiently persistent in the one-month follow up stage (p < 0.01). results of the present research confirmed the effectiveness of positive psychotherapy in improving parenting stress among mothers of children with Down syndrome. The results affirm the importance of applying this intervention on psychological symptoms of mothers with Down syndrome and offering new perspectives in clinical interventions.

Keywords

• parenting stress
• positive psychotherapy
• down criteria