Developing a parenting training package based on executive functions and investigating its effect on parental stress and mental health of parents of children with neurodevelopmental disorders

he aim of the present study was to develop a parenting training package based on executive functions and to investigate its effect on parental stress and mental health of mothers of children with neurodevelopmental disorders. In the present study, a pre-test-post-test pseudo-experimental design with a control group was used. The statistical population of this study included all mothers of children with neurodevelopmental disorders in Tehran City (950 people). 30 mothers of students with neurodevelopmental disorders were selected through targeted sampling and were randomly divided into control and experiment groups (each group included 15 people). The experiment group participated in 10 60-minute sessions for 5 weeks in the parenting training course, which was derived from Barkley, Gordon and Drikouras' seven-step parenting training program. In order to measure the mental health of parents, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was used, and in order to evaluate the stress level of mothers, the Parental Stress Index (PSI) was used. The data obtained from the educational effect of parenting based on executive functions on parental stress and mental health of mothers were analyzed using SPSS-26 software and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The parenting training package based on executive functions was prepared in seven steps and its content validity was checked and confirmed by experts. Also, the findings showed that this educational package had a significant effect on reducing parental stress and increasing the mental health of mothers of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (P<0.05). The results showed that parenting training based on executive functions had a positive effect on improving the mental health and reducing the stress of mothers with children with neurodevelopmental disorders.