Effectiveness of group acceptance and commitment therapy on parental self-efficacy among mothers of children with cancer

Parents of children with cancer are more susceptible to psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, stress, and generally, mental health risks. This study was done to determine the effectiveness of group acceptance and commitment therapy on self-efficacy among mothers of children with cancer.

This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 30 mothers of children with cancer referring to Children’s Medical Center in Tehran, Iran during 2017. Mothers were non-randomly assigned into intervention and control groups. For gathering the data, the parental self agency measure of Dumka and colleagues (PSAM; 1996) was used. The group acceptance and commitment therapy was offered to subjects in the interventional group for 2-hour in 10 sessions, but the control group's mothers did not receive any intervention.

Mean scores of self-efficacy among mothers of children with cancer were 31.40±6.40 and 53.87±13.35 in pre-test and post-test, respectively (P<0.05). Mean scores of self-efficacies among mothers in the control group were 30.07±5.73 and 29±7.58 in pre-test and post-test, respectively. This difference was not significant.

Acceptance and commitment therapy significantly improves parental self-efficacy among mothers of children with cancer.