Effectiveness of Attachment-Based Intervention Model on Reducing the Parenting Stress in the Mothers of Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Children with behavioral disorders display behaviors that may negatively impact on the people and the environment around them and cause numerous problems for their parents and other family members. Therefore, this research was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of an attachment-based intervention model on reducing the parenting stress in mothers of children with oppositional defiant disorder. 

This study was a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design with 2-month follow-up. The population included the mothers of all primary school boys with oppositional defiant disorder who had been referred to the consultation center of the Education Administration of Gonbad Kavoos city in 2017. Twenty of them were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and randomly assigned to either the experimental (n=10) or the control group (n=10). The experimental group received eight 90-min sessions of attachment-based intervention model (once per week), whereas the control group underwent no intervention. Data were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA.  

Findings showed a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of maternal parenting stress (F = 17.35, P = 0.001) and oppositional defiance (F = 17.65, P = 0.001) in the posttest and after two-month follow up.

Maternal attachment therapy provides parents and children psychotherapy centers with effective parenting strategies for improving the functioning of the parent-child relationship and treating the behavioral problems of children suffering from attachment problems.