Effectiveness of Emotion-focused Group Intervention on sexual satisfaction, marital satisfaction and dimensions of mental health in mothers of children with intellectual disability

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of emotion-focused group intervention on sexual satisfaction, marital satisfaction and dimensions of mental health in mothers of children with intellectual disability. A quantitative study design using quasi-experimental method including pretest posttest follow-up with control group was used. The population consisted of all mothers with mentally retarded children who their child studying in Meybod in 1397-98 academic year. A total of 24 mothers were selected by available sampling method and randomly assigned in experimental and control groups (12 participants per groups). Participants answered Lovibond’s depression, anxiety and stress scale, Enrich marital satisfaction scale, and Larson sexual satisfaction questionnaire at pretest, posttest and follow-up phases. The experimental group received emotion-focused group intervention intervention in 8 sessions of 1.5 hours (two sessions per week) while the control group did not receive any intervention. Finally, the data were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA at the significance level of 0.05. The results showed that, compared to control group, the mean scores of sexual satisfaction, marital satisfaction and maintained at the follow up phase (p <0.001). According to the results, it can be concluded that emotion-focused group intervention could improve sexual satisfaction, marital satisfaction and mental health of mothers with intellectual disable children. So, emotion-focused can see as a be a valuable intervention to reduce the problems of mothers with intellectual disable children.