Effects of Cognitive-Behavioral Stress Management Training on Mothers’ Quality of Life and their Children’s Behavioral Problems

This study set out to examine the effects of cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention on mothers’ quality of life and their children’s behavioral problems. This quasi-experimental research had a pretest-posttest control group design with a follow-up assessment. The statistical population of the study included mothers of pre-school children with behavioral problems at public schools in Rasht (District 2) in 2016. To draw the sample, Children’s Behavioral Problems Questionnaire (Shahim & Yusefi, 1999) was administered to mothers in 9 schools. In the next step, thirty mothers were chosen through convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to control (N=15) and experimental (N=15) groups. To assess mothers’ quality of life, WHO Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) was given to both groups in the pretest and posttest phases. The experimental group received stress management training in 10 sessions, while the control group did not receive any intervention. The data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA. The results showed that stress management training had a significant positive effect on mothers’ quality of life (P>0.001). Despite the fact that there was a significant decrease between pretest and follow-up in the experimental group as to children’s behavioral problems (P>0.001), no significant difference was observed between control and experimental groups in terms of children’s behavioral problems (P<0.05). It is, therefore, suggested that this intervention be utilized more extensively to improve the psychological status and quality of life of mothers with children suffering from behavioral problems.