Mohammadmorad Khoshakhlagh; Fatemeh Sadat Marashian; Hamdollah Jayervand
Abstract
Background: The mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience extreme stress due to the limited social, communicational, and emotional competencies of their children along with inefficient cognitive development and maladjustment. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness ...
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Background: The mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience extreme stress due to the limited social, communicational, and emotional competencies of their children along with inefficient cognitive development and maladjustment. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of positive psychotherapy and pivotal response treatment (PRT) in family satisfaction in mothers of children with ASD. Methods: The research method was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest control group design. The study population comprised all mothers of children with autism in Ahvaz, Iran in 2021. Forty-five mothers were selected through convenience sampling and were randomly divided into two experimental groups and one control group (each with 15 members). The experimental group underwent positive psychotherapy (fourteen 90-minute sessions) and PRT (twelve 90-minute sessions). However, the control group received no intervention. The data were analyzed using the analysis of covariance. Results: The mean±standard deviation of the post-test scores of family satisfaction in the positive psychotherapy and PRT groups was 33.66±6.98 and 36.26±6.57, which was significantly different from the control group (18.53±4.05). The results suggested that both positive psychotherapy and PRT were effective in increasing family satisfaction in mothers of children with autism (p <0.001). There were no significant differences between the effectiveness of positive psychotherapy and PRT in increasing family satisfaction in mothers of children with autism. Conclusion: It can be concluded that positive psychotherapy and PRT can be adopted to increase the family satisfaction of mothers.
