Effectiveness of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy on Emotion Control and Resilience of Mothers of Children with Epilepsy

Epilepsy is one of the most common chronic neurological disorders in children, characterized by frequent seizures caused by abnormal brain secretions. Children with epilepsy cannot manage themselves independently and need more intensive care from their caregivers than adult patients, and this problem puts a heavy burden on parents, especially mothers. Caring for children with epilepsy is very challenging and stressful. Also, symptoms and disabilities associated with neurological conditions majorly impact on individuals, families and caregivers. Studies have shown that, among different treatment approaches, dialectical behavior therapy plays a significant role in achieving behavioral and emotional stability, as well as the functioning of the mother and the family with a child suffering from neurodevelopmental and chronic disorders. So, the present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of dialectical behavior therapy on the emotional control and resilience of mothers of children with epilepsy.

The present research was a quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest and a two–month follow–up design with a control group. The statistical population of the present study consisted of all mothers of children with epilepsy who were referred to Poursina Medical and Educational Center in Rasht City, Iran, in 2021. Of whom 32 mothers were voluntarily selected by the convenience sampling method considering the inclusion criteria. After acquiring their informed consent, they were assigned to a dialectical behavior therapy and a control group (16 people in each group) by random method (lottery). The study data were gathered via Emotion Control Questionnaire (Roger and Najarian, 1989) and Conner–Davidson Resilience Scale (Conner & Davidson, 2003). To perform the therapeutic intervention, Marsha Linehan's dialectical behavior therapy (1970) was implemented for the experimental group in 10 sessions (one session per week for 120 minutes) and at the same time, the control group did not undergo any type of psychotherapy intervention. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 26 software. In descriptive statistics, mean and standard deviation were used. At the level of inferential statistics, the Chi–square test, variance analysis test with repeated measurements and Bonferroni post hoc test were used. The significance level of the tests was 0.05.

Results showed that the group effect (p<0.001), time effect (p<0.001), and group and time interaction effect (p<0.001) on emotional control variable and its components (emotional inhibition, aggression control, non–rumination, benign control) and resilience variable were significant. The posttest and follow–up scores of the emotion control variable and its components (emotional inhibition, aggression control, non–rumination, benign control) and the resilience variable in the experimental group increased significantly compared to the pretest scores (p<0.001). However, there was no significant difference between the scores of the control group at different times in mentioned variables (p>0.05). Also, regarding the emotion control variable and its components (emotional inhibition, aggression control, non–rumination, benign control) and the resilience variable, no significant differences were observed between the posttest and follow–up scores of the mentioned variables, which indicated the lasting effect of the intervention in the follow–up phase (p>0.05).

According to the findings, dialectical behavior therapy effectively increases the emotional control and resilience of mothers of children with epilepsy. Therefore, counselors and therapists can use dialectical behavior therapy to improve and increase emotional control and resilience of mothers of children with epilepsy or similar diseases.