The Effect of Positive Psychological Intervention on Self-Efficacy, Resilience and Life Expectancy in Mothers of Children with Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

Few studies have investigated how positive psychology can be applied for parents of children with intellectual disabilities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of positive psychological intervention on self-efficacy, resilience and life expectancy mothers of children with intellectual disabilities. The semi-experimental research method was a pre-test-post-test design and follow-up with a control group. A sample of 20 mothers of children with intellectual disabilities were selected in a purposeful way and assigned to two experimental and control groups (10 people each group). The required information was collected through three questionnaires: Sherer General self-efficacy, Hope Schneider et al., and Connor and Davidson's resilience questionnaire. Participants were evaluated before the intervention, then positive psychological intervention was implemented for the experimental group in 6 sessions, and re-evaluated in the post-test and follow-up stage. The data were analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance. The Results showed that positive psychological intervention improved self-efficacy, resilience and life expectancy in mothers of children with intellectual disabilities. Therefore, it is suggested to use this intervention to improve self-efficacy, resilience and life expectancy in mothers of children with intellectual disabilities.

Keywords

• intellectual disabilities
• positivity psychological intervention
• self-efficacy
• life expectancy
• resilience