The Effectiveness of Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders on Alexithymia of Children and their Mother’s Parental Self-Efficacy in Divorced Families during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Traumatic events such as divorce play an important role in causing alexithymia in children and parental self-efficacy. A unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment focuses simultaneously on the child’s emotions and parental effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders on alexithymia of children and their mother’s parental self-efficacy in divorced families during the COVID-19 Pandemic
The present study is a quasi-experimental design with pretest, posttest, follow-up and control group. The statistical population of this study included mothers and their children in divorced families in Tehran in 2021. A total of 24 sample (24 children and their mothers) were selected by convenience sampling and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Assessment was done using the Torrento’s scale of Alexithymia and the Domka’s Parental Self-efficacy scale. The experimental groups received 12 sessions of unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders but the control group did not receive any intervention. The collected data were analyzed with SPSS using ANOVA with repeated measure.
Findings show that unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders improves alexithymia in children and increases their mothers' parenting self-efficacy. The results showed that between the two groups of control and experiment in the post-test and follow-up stages in the variables of alexithymia in children, including difficulty in recognizing emotions and difficulty in describing emotions (P = 0.014), F = 5.23) there was a significant difference in the component of objective thinking (P = 0.001, F = 11.53) of children and their mothers' self-efficacy (P = 0.001, F = 18.64).
According to findings, it can be mentioned that paying attention to this approach can be useful in treatment programs and counseling in order to reduce alexithymia in children and increase the self-efficacy of parenting in divorced families.