Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Social Adjustment and Anxiety in Mothers of Children with Autism

According to the world health organization (WHO), in 1975, out of every 5,000 people, one person suffered from autism disorder. There was an increase of 166 in 2004, and one person has had autism disorder from 42 children in 2014. Parents with autism have a unique and unique challenge in their lives and experience high levels of stress and psychological distress in the end, leading to psychological disorders such as lack of compliance, resilience, depression, and anxiety. Most previous studies focused on children with autism, while few studies have investigated the effect of psychological interventions on the problems of mothers of this group as their primary caregivers. Therefore, due to the increasing population of autistic children and the need for attention of autistic children mothers due to the psychological pressures faced by mothers, attention to the issue of autistic children mothers, especially social persistence, is important. This study suggested that group therapy based on acceptance and commitment to mothers can help to improve their social adjustment and resilience. Therefore, the main goal of this study was to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on social adjustment and the resilience of autistic children mothers.

In this study, a semi–experimental, pre–test and post–test design with control group was used. The statistical population of this study was all mothers with autism children in Tehran (capital city of Iran). From this society, 30 people were selected purposefully and randomly replaced in two groups (n=15 for each group) with a trial and a test. The method followed that coordination with the authorities of the clinic and the welfare organization of Tehran began the implementation of the research. First, a pre–test of social adjustment and social anxiety questionnaire was performed for both groups (experimental and control), then acceptance and commitment treatment sessions were performed in 8 sessions for the experimental group, but no intervention was applied to the control group. At the end of the experimental intervention, the experimental group and the post–test control group performed. In order to observe the research ethics for the control group after therapy sessions with research as well as research samples assured of confidentiality of information. The required data collected. Finally, using SPSS software version 20, independent T tests performed to compare the age of the two groups and covariance test to measure the effectiveness at the level of 0.05 to analyze the findings.

The experimental group scores significantly changed in each group in comparison to the control group scores in each adjustment and social anxiety. Therefore, the mean social adjustment score of the experimental group increased from 13.512±4.742 in the pretest to 23.125±7.261 in the post–test phase and the mean social anxiety score of the experimental group was 41.526±10.136 in the pretest stage, the rate of post–test was reduced by 20.518±8.126. The result of covariance analysis showed that after eliminating the effect of pre–test, the mean scores of post–test of two groups were statistically significant (p<0.001).

This study showed that acceptance and commitment therapy for mothers with autistic children could be used as a psychological intervention along with other interventions and could be a good treatment to improve the adaptation and anxiety of mothers with autistic children. Therefore, the use of acceptance and commitment–based treatment by psychologists and counselors can help to improve the compatibility and anxiety of scars with children with autism.