r. davarniya

Mothers of children with Down syndrome face challenges in caring for their children which lead to decreased happiness among them. The present research was conducted by the aim of investigating the effectiveness of positive psychotherapy on happiness among mothers of children with Down syndrome.

The present research was a semi-experimental study which used a pretest-posttest with control group design. The research population included all the mothers of children with Down syndrome referring to Navide Asr comprehensive rehabilitation center in Tehran in 2017. The sample included 40 mothers (20 subjects per group) who were selected by purposeful sampling method and were assigned into experiment and control groups through random assignment method. The participants of both groups completed the Demographic Information Questionnaire and the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire in pretest and posttest stages. Sessions of weekly group positive psychotherapy were held in eight 90-minute sessions for the participants of the experiment group, but the control group participants received no intervention. Univariate analysis of covariance, Kolmogorov–Smirnov test and Levene’s Test in SPSSv20 was used for analyzing the data.

Mean and standard deviation of the scores of happiness among the subjects of the experiment group were 39.95 ± 6.38 in pretest which equaled 59.45 ± 9.10 in the posttest. Also, in the control group, mean and standard deviation of the scores of happiness were 40.20 ± 6.06 and 38.65 ± 7.22 in pretest and posttest stages, respectively. Results of the covariance analysis indicated that, by controlling for the effect of pretest, there is a significant difference in between the mean scores of experiment and control groups suggesting the effectiveness of positive psychotherapy in increasing happiness among the experiment subjects (F = 95.76, P < 0.01).

Results of the present research confirmed the effectiveness of positive psychotherapy in improving happiness among mothers of children with Down syndrome. The results affirm the importance of applying this intervention on psychological symptoms of mothers of children with Down syndrome and offering new perspectives in clinical interventions.

Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic progressive disease of the central nervous system with various physical and psychological disabling symptoms that causes many problems for the patient. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of compassion-focused therapy on resiliency in women with multiple sclerosis. This research was an experimental intervention using a post-test pre-test with control group. The research population consisted of all female patients with active case in MS Society of Tehran in 2016. The sample consisted of 30 female patients who were selected according to the criteria of entry and exit, and the acquired scores in the questionnaire were selected by random sampling and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The instrument was the Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale. After taking the pretest from both groups, the experimental group received 8 consecutive two-hour treatment-centered compassion-based treatments in a group and weekly manner. The control group was placed on the waiting list. Data were analyzed by SPSS software using ANOVA test (ANCOVA). The mean and standard deviation of the scores of the subjects in the experimental group were 66.73±14.27 in the pre-test and 87.33±7.6 in the post-test phase. In the control group, the mean and standard deviation of the resiliency scores before and after the intervention were 59±16.01 and 58.8±15.85. The results of covariance analysis showed that there is a significant difference between the mean of the experimental and control groups with the control of the effect of the test (F=78.63 and p<0.01), which indicates the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy in increasing the resilience of the interventional subjects. CFT, as a new therapeutic method, is likely to be an appropriate intervention for reducing psychological problems and increasing mental health among MS patients. It is recommended that MS associations across Iran would use this therapeutic method for enhancing psychological health of patients.