The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program on Psychological Wellbeing, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Relationships in the Mothers of Children with Developmental Disabilities

The family is a dynamic system where individuals with a sense of belonging and a unique identity enjoy a safe environment. This safe environment protects them socio–economically and emotionally. The families of children with disabilities are at high risk for having a child with an injury; this problem is encountered when less attention is paid to the health of families. The presence of a family member with a disorder affects the functioning of all family members. The parents of children with developmental disorders experience numerous challenges that expose them to high stress and adverse psychological consequences. Parental involvement in treatment can reduce this confusion. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of the Mindfulness–Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program on Psychological Wellbeing (PWB), Emotion Regulation (ER), and interpersonal relationships in the mothers of children with developmental disorders.

This was a quasi–experimental study with pretest–posttest and a control group design. The statistical population included all mothers of children with developmental disabilities who lived in Saqez City, Iran, in 2018–2019. In total, 100 subjects were recruited for the initial research design by the convenience sampling method. Moreover, with ethical considerations and expressing the research goals, and obtaining informed consent forms, 100 individuals agreed to participate in the research. Many of the selected samples were eliminated based on the inclusion criteria. The final study sample included 30 mothers who were randomly divided into the experimental and control groups (n=15/group). The inclusion criteria of the study included no use of psychotropic drugs, no use of psychological and other counseling interventions, no psychotic disorders, dementia, and intellectual disabilities, alertness, and ability to practice mindfulness, and ability to speak Persian. Measurement tools in this study were the Psychological Well–Being Scale (Ryff, 1989), Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Granefski & Kraaij, 2006), and Short Version of Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (Barkham et al., 1996). The experimental group received eight 2–hour MBSR sessions. This treatment program was performed based on the content of the MBSR program (Kabat–Zinn, 2005) and MBSR workbook (Estahl and Goldstein, 2019); however, the control group received no intervention. Moreover, descriptive statistics (mean & standard deviation) and inferential statistics, including univariate Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) were used in SPSS to analyze the obtained data. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05.

The current research results suggested the positive and significant effects of MBSR on ER, leading to improved adaptive ER strategies (p<0.001) and decreased maladaptive ER strategies (p=0.002) in the experimental group. Furthermore, MBSR increased PWB (p<0.001) and reduced interpersonal relationship problems in the experimental group (p<0.001).

According to the research findings, the MBSR program was effective in improving ER, increasing PWB, and reducing the problems of interpersonal relationships in the mothers of children with developmental disabilities.