The Effectiveness of Positive Psychology on PsychologicalWell-being of Mothers with a Mentally Retarded Child

Children with mental disabilities put a lot of stress on the family due to the needs of care, education and rehabilitation, and these factors can affect the process of psychological adjustment and well-being of their parents.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of positive psychology on psychological well-being of mothers with a mentally retarded child. The quasi-experimental research was pre-test, post-test, and control group. The semi-experimental was pre-test-post-test with a control group. The sample comprised of the study included all mothers with mentally retarded children in the sample rehabilitation center of Shahriar city. 30 people were selected by purposive sampling method and were replaced in two experimental groups (n=15) and control group (n=15). The experimental group received 8 two-hour sessions of positive psychological intervention training. Psychological well-being questionnaire (Reef, 2002) was used to collect data. Data analysis was performed using one-way analysis of covariance.

It showed that positive psychological interventions had an impact on psychological well-being and its components in mothers with mentally retarded children.

According to the findings of this study, positive psychology can be considered as a method for empowering mothers with mentally retarded children.