The Impact of Mindfulness-Based Training on Empathy and Cognitive Flexibility of the Wives of Disabled Veterans

The empathy and cognitive flexibility of the women whose husbands are disabled veterans is especially important due to special circumstances and stresses they undergo. The present study aims to investigate the impact of mindfulness-based training on the empathy and cognitive flexibility of the wives of disabled veterans.

This is a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest and control group. The statistical population consisted of 25 to 40 percent of the wives of disabled veterans in Tehran, Iran in 2017. The research sample included 24 wives of disabled veteran who were randomly assigned into experimental (12 people) and control groups (12 people). They responded to the Batson Empathy Adjectives Questionnaire (1983) and the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (2010). The experimental group received group-based mindfulness treatment for 8 weekly sessions, and no intervention was performed on the control group. Covariance analysis was used to analyze the data.

The results showed that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups after mindfulness training on empathy and cognitive flexibility. The level of empathy and cognitive flexibility in the experimental group was significantly different from the pretest stage and that the control group (p < 0.01).

It can be concluded that mindfulness-based training promotes empathy and cognitive flexibility in the wives of the disabled veterans.