The effectiveness of parent training on self-efficacy of mothers of children with autism

Parent of children with autism face challenges which could be predisposing for negative psychological outcomes. Involvement of parent in implementing intervention strategies designed to help their children can reduce these negative outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of parent education and skill training program (PESTP) on selfefficacy of mothers with preschool children with autism. This semi-experimental study was conducted with pretest, posttest and follow-up design, using control group. This research was done during 2009-2010. Samples of study were 21 mothers of preschool children with autism (aged 3-7 years) in Mashhad selected through available sampling and randomly allocated to experimental and control groups. Participant in experimental group received eleven sessions of training with the PESTP. All participants completed demographic questionnaire, parenting sense of competence scale (PSOCS) before, immediately after and 70 days after training as follow-up. To analyze data mixed analysis of variance were used. The results showed that training with the PESTP didn’t increase maternal self-efficacy (P=0.86). Also, no significant changes were observed in maternal satisfaction (P=0.49) and sense of competence (P=0.70). The results of this research showedthat parent education and skill training program is not effective in increasing self-efficacy.