The Effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) in Improving Quality of Life and Parental Self-Efficacy in Mothers of Autistic Children

The present study was aimed to investigate the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy (CFT) in improving parental quality of life and self-efficacy in mothers of autistic children. The present research was conducted by semi-experimental method which used a pretest-posttest with control group design. The population of the current research included mothers of autistic children in 2018 whose children had a case file in the Nedaye Asr rehabilitation center of Tehran. A total number of 40 mothers were selected by purposive sampling method and were assigned into experiment and control groups via random assignment method (20 subjects per group). The levels of parental self-efficacy and quality of life were assessed by Dumka and colleagues’ Parental Self Agency Measure (PSAM; 1996) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire (1998) in pretest and posttest stages. The experiment group received the CFT intervention in eight 2-hour sessions. The data were analyzed through univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) in SPSS v20. The results showed a significant difference in the level of parental quality of life and self-efficacy between the subjects of the experiment and control groups in the posttest stage. The results confirmed the effectiveness of CFT in improving parental quality of life and self-efficacy of mothers in the experiment group (P<0.01). As a new therapeutic approach, CFT is probably an appropriate interventional option for decreasing psychological problems and increasing mental health among mothers of autistic children.