Zohre Valiei; Ahmad Amani
Abstract
The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is one of the third-generation behavioral therapies that tries to increase psychological flexibility instead of changing cognitions. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the group ACT on parenting stress, hardiness, and parent-child ...
Read More
The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is one of the third-generation behavioral therapies that tries to increase psychological flexibility instead of changing cognitions. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the group ACT on parenting stress, hardiness, and parent-child relationship in mothers of children with ADHD. The research method was semi-experimental, with a pre-test, post-test, 2-month follow-up, and control group. The statistical population of the study included all mothers with ADHD children who were studying in Sanandj city. Among them, through the convenience sampling method, 30 subjects who met the criteria for entering the research were first listed and then randomly assigned to two groups of experimental (i.e., ACT) or control. The research tools were the parent-child relationship scale (Pianta, 1992), parenting stress index (Abidin, 1995), and hardiness questionnaire (Cobasa, 1979). The experimental group received eight sessions of ACT training (each session lasting for two hours), while the control group did not receive any intervention. Then, the post-test and, after two-months, the follow-up test were conducted. The obtained data were analyzed using the repeated measures analysis of variance. The findings showed that ACT led to reduced parenting stress, and increased parent-child relationship and hardiness, and the treatment gains were maintained at the follow-up stage. Hence, ACT was effective for parenting stress, hardiness, and parent-child relationship in mothers of ADHD children. The findings emphasized the importance of applying these interventions for the relationship between parent and child, and parenting stress and hardiness in mothers with ADHD child, and the provision pf new horizons for clinical interventions of these mothers and their offspring(s).