The Effectiveness of Narrative Therapy on the Psychological Capital of Mothers of Children With Intellectual and Developmental Disability

Abstract

Objectives: Recently, considerable attention has been paid to the field of positive psychology, and one of the variables that has been investigated in this field is narrative therapy. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of narrative therapy on the psychological capital of mothers of children with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Methods: This study was an applied experimental research (pre-test-post-test with a control group). The study’s statistical population includes mothers of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Aliabad Katul City, Iran, in the academic year of 2021-2022 who volunteered to participate in the research. From this population, 30 mothers who scored low on the psychological capital questionnaire were purposefully selected and randomly assigned to two groups (experimental and control). Luthans psychological capital questionnaire was used to collect data. The intervention was a narrative therapy educational program implemented in eight 50-minute sessions in a group format. Data were analyzed using covariance analysis in SPSS software, version 22. Results: The results demonstrated that narrative therapy has a significant effect on increasing psychological capital (P=0.05). Also, the results showed that narrative therapy significantly affects dimensions of psychological capital including self-efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism. Discussion: Therefore, a training program in narrative therapy can be used as a helpful treatment to increase the psychological capital of mothers of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Keywords

• narrative therapy
• psychological capital
• intellectual and developmental disability