Effectiveness of Occupational Performance Coaching (OPC) on the Mental Health in Mothers of Children with Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy leads to many physical and functional limitations in the daily living of the children, which results in the child becoming dependent on parents and especially the mother. For this reason, mothers of these children spend a lot of time caring for their children. According to the evidence, mothers of these children experience higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression compared with mothers of typically developing children. This amount of stress may reduce quality of life in these mothers. The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of occupational performance coaching as one of the interventions in order to improve mental health in mothers of children with cerebral palsy.

In the current study with pretest-posttest design and a control group, 30 mothers of children with cerebral palsy wererandomly assigned to intervention or control groups. The short form of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), COPM questionnaire, Gross Motor Function Classification Scale (GMFCS), and SPARCLE Form were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using independent t-test and Mann-Whitney test in SPSS, version 22.

The results of data analysis showed that after performing occupational performance coaching, mothers had significantly lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression in the post-test scores as compared with their pre-test scores.

According to our results, ooccupational performance coaching can be used as an effective intervention to improve the mental health in mothers of children with cerebral palsy and to reduce their level of stress, anxiety, and depression along with other approaches.