Effect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Caregiver Burden and Marital Stress in Mothers of children with Special Needs

Expanding opportunities and enhancing the quality of life of children and young adults with disabilities and their families is a challenging task. An increasing number of parents are refusing to enroll their children at special schools. Due to the necessity of personal and marital life and the importance of improving the lives, families with children with special needs, this study examines the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on caregiver burden and marital stress of mothers of children with special needs. The study employed a two group pre-test post quasi-experimental design. The study population consisted of all married women in Zahedan with a least one child with special needs. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 30 participants. The participants were randomly assigned to experiment and control groups in equal numbers. The research instruments were Family Burden Interview Schedule (FBIS) and Marital Stress Scale (MSS). The experiment group received Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in ten sessions each lasing 45 minutes. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that a significant impact of acceptance and commitment therapy training (P<0.05) on marital stress and caregiver burden.  Also, the effect size and power strength were 0.68 and 0.95 for caregiver stress scores and 0.77 and 0.93 for marital stress scores, respectively, which show that the effect of treatment based on acceptance and commitment on the amount maternal stress and marital stress have been remarkable and strong. Marital stress and psychological stress can result from the lack of acceptance, consciousness or non- commitment and avoidance of conflict and insincerity. So group training therapy based on acceptance and commitment may improve the lives of families with special needs.