Effectiveness of health-oriented lifestyle education on parenting stress and health-related quality of life in mothers of obese and overweight children

Mothers of obese or overweight children may experience higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression compared to mothers of children who are not obese or overweight. By modifying the lifestyle of mothers, it is possible to help improve the psychological health of mothers. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to the effectiveness of health-oriented lifestyle education on parenting stress and health-related quality of life in mothers of obese and overweight children.

The research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with two experimental and control groups. The statistical population of the current study included all mothers with obese and overweight children in primary school in Tehran in the academic year of 2014-2016, who did not undergo any weight loss intervention. The sample size was determined through G*power software in such a way that the study has the necessary power to detect a difference of at least 1 unit in the level of quality of life and parenting stress between the experimental and control groups. Assuming the probability of the first type of error is 5% and the probability of the second type of error is 20%, and assuming a standard deviation of 0.9, the number of samples equal to about 15 people for each group was obtained. Then, parenting stress index short questionnaires (36 questions) and two versions of the quality of life questionnaire related to mother and child health (10 questions) were distributed to both groups. After that, the health-oriented lifestyle training program was implemented in the form of 10 sessions 90 minutes and once a week in the experimental group. Then the questionnaires mentioned above were filled out again immediately by both groups. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 24 software and the covariance analysis method. Also, the significance level of the tests was considered 0.05.

The results of covariance analysis for each of the subscales of quality of life related to health and parenting stress show that in all components (except for ineffective interaction) between the two test and control groups in the post-test, after removing There is a significant difference in the pre-test effect (P<0.001).

Therefore, it can be said that teaching a healthy lifestyle to the mothers of obese and overweight children can improve the performance of mothers in relation to their children and also reduce their stress.