Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Group Training on Mother’s Child Abuse and Quality of Life of Preschool Children

Child abuse and neglect are global problems with negative outcomes in the quality of life among children. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral group training on child-abuser mothers and the quality of life of children.

This interventional study was conducted based on a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The statistical population of this study included all preschool children in kindergartens in Khorramabad, Iran. Using the cluster sampling method, 23 children who gained the abuse score were selected, along with their mothers were selected and randomly divided into an experimental (n=10) and a control (n=13) group. The mothers in the experimental group received cognitive-behavioral training for eight 90-minute sessions. The tools used to collect data consisted of the Child Abuse Scale (Mohammadkhani, 2011) and the Quality of Life Questionnaire (Fakkes, 2000). The gathered data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 22) using descriptive statistics, the Chi-square test, and the Mann-Whitney U test at a significance level of <0.05.

The data analysis of this study showed that group cognitive-behavioral training had a significant effect on the reduction of all dimensions of mother’s child abuse (P<0.05) and a positive effect on evaluating the quality of life of children from their mother's point of view (P<0.05).

In general, the results of the study indicated that cognitive-behavioral training was effective in reducing mothers’ child abuse and improvement of the quality of life of preschool children.