The Effect of Family Life Education on Parenting Stress Components of Mothers with Mentally Retarded Children in the Parent Domain

Considering the importance of parenting stress of mothers with mentally retarded children in their other roles, the aim of this study was determine the effect of family life education on parenting stress components of mothers with mentally retarded children in the parent domain.

This research was semi-experimental with pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The study population was mothers with mentally retarded children of Rasht city in the academic years 2017-2018. The research sample was 60 people who according to the inclusion criteria were selected by available sampling method and randomly replaced in two equal groups. The experimental group underwent of family life education for 12 sessions of 90 minutes and during this period the control group did not receive any education. To collect data were used from the researcher-made demographic information form and stresses of parenting index (Abidin, 1990) and analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance method in SPSS-20.

The results showed that family life education led to reduce the components of parenting stress including feelings of competence, attachment, role restriction, and depression, relationships with spouse, health and social isolation in mothers with mentally retarded children in the parent domain (P˂0.05).

The results showed the effect of family life education on reducing parenting stress components. Therefore, therapists and health professionals can use family life education method along with other educational methods to improve family characteristics.