The Role of Positive Thinking in Life Expectancy and Psychological Distress of Mothers With Children With Special Learning Disabilities

Parents of children with learning disabilities, especially mothers often face stressors and various psychological and social pressures due to their childchr('39')s problems, and these parents are more anxious and depressed in comparison with other parents. Positive psychologists believe that hope has the potential to support people in the face of stressful events. Life expectancy is a powerful resource and a kind of rebirth that is vital to human beings. Positive thinking is one of the variables related to life expectancy and psychological distress of mothers of children with special learning disabilities. On the other hand, one of the variables that may be associated with mothers of children with special learning disabilities is psychological distress. Psychological distress is a transcendental structure that measures a personchr('39')s expectations about the ability to tolerate negative emotion, assess the emotional position in terms of acceptability, personal adjustment of emotion, and the amount of attention attracted by negative emotion. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the positive thinking role in life expectancy and psychological distress of mothers with children with special learning disabilities.

The present study was a descriptive–analytical correlational. The statistical population consisted of all mothers with children with special learning disabilities whose children were studying in primary schools in Tehran in the academic year of 2009–2010. Using the available sampling method, 180 mothers of these children were selected as the sample. Criteria for motherschr('39') inclusion in the study included having a child with a specific learning disability, lack of hearing impairment, uncorrected vision with glasses, lack of physical and motor impairment, lack of mental, developmental and acquisition impairment in children and minimum education level for mothers. The criteria for excluding mothers from the study were their unwillingness to participate in this study. Positive Thinking Questionnaire (PTI) (Ingram & Wisnicki, 1988), Miller Hope Scale (MHS) (Miller & Powers, 1988) and Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (KPDS) (Kessler et al., 2010) were used to collect data, and Pearson correlation and Multiple linear regression were used to analyze the data 0.05. Data were also analyzed using SPSS21 software.

According to the demographic information of the mothers participating in this study, 122 (67.8%) of the mothers were housewives and 58 (32.2%) were employed. The level of education of 30 people (16.7%) was less than diploma, 47 people (26.1%) had a diploma, 65 people (36.1%) had a masterchr('39')s degree and 38 people (21.1%) had a bachelorchr('39')s degree or more. 110 (61.1%) of these children were girls and 70 (38.9%) were boys. The results Positive self–assessment (B=0.615, p=0.001), positive future expectations (B=0.591, p=0.001), self–confidence (B=0.527, p=0.005), otherschr('39') self–assessment (B=0.491, p=0.011), and positive daily functioning (B=0.487, p=0.019), were able to predict life expectancy, and positive self– assessment was more predictive than other components. In explaining life expectancy from positive daily functioning, positive self–assessment, otherschr('39') self–assessment, positive future expectations and self–confidence, it can be said that the fitted model was able to explain and predict 0.49 of the variance of variable life expectancy. Positive future expectations (B= –0.588, p= 0.001), positive self–assessment (B= –0.556, p= 0.001), daily positive performance (B= –0.526, p= 0.009), otherschr('39') self–assessment (B= –0.498, p= 0.016) and self–confidence (B= –0.472, p= 0.021) were able to predict psychological distress. Based on the standardized coefficients of estimation, it can be said that positive expectations of the future became the predictor of psychological distress more than other components. In explaining psychological distress from daily positive functioning, positive self–assessment, otherschr('39') self–assessment, positive future expectations and self–confidence, it can be said that the fitted model was able to explain and predict 0.42 of the variance of variable psychological distress.

Positive thinking plays an essential role in predicting life expectancy and psychological distress of mothers with children with special learning disabilities.