Effectiveness of Group Counseling Based on the Reality Therapy on Resilience and Psychological Well-Being of Mothers with an Intellectual Disabled Child

Abstract

Background: The birth of a child with mental retardation can put a lot of mentally pressure on people around her, especially on mother. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of group counseling based on the reality therapy on the resilience and psychological well-being of mothers with an intellectual disabled child. Materials and Methods: The research was quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest design and control group. Forty mothers with an intellectual disabled child who their children were studying at the exceptional schools of Kermanshah city in 2017; selected by simple random sampling and assigned into two intervention (n=20), and control groups (n=20). The intervention group received group training in 10 sessions of 60 minutes (one session every week). The research tools include Conner and Davidson Resilience (2003), and Reef Psychological Well-Being (1980). Data were analyzed by SPSS software (version 21), and multivariate analysis of covariance. Results: The mean of mothers’ resilience in the intervention group was 74.41±8.33 in post-test; in the control group, 45.41±16.84 in post-test. The mean of the psychological well-being of mothers in the intervention group was 72.5±83.3 in post-test; in the control group, these values were 34.12±7.47 in post-test, respectively. The results of the independent t-test showed that there is a significant difference between two groups in terms of resilience and psychological well-being (p<0.001). Conclusion: According to the results, the mothers under the group training based on the reality therapy had a significant improvement in increasing the level of resilience and psychological well-being compared to the control group.