The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Life Skill Training on Parent-Child Relationship among Parents of Children with Intellectual Disabilities

The importance of quality of life in children with intellectual disabilities (ID) is receiving increasing attention nowadays. Considering the role of parents in improving the quality of life of children with mental disabilities, the present study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of mindfulness-based life skills training on the parent-child relationship among parents with ID children.

The research design was experimental with a pretest, post-test and control group. The statistical population of the study was the parents with ID children who were training in schools in Shiraz in 2021. The parents were matched based on age and level of their literacy. The sample size is 30 parents who were selected by convenience sampling and randomly assigned into experimental (n = 15) and control (n = 15) groups. The intervention was performed in 8 sessions of 120 minutes (one session per week) for experimental group. Data were collected using a child-parent relationship questionnaire and analyzed using multivariate and univariate analysis of covariance and SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 22.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Ill., USA).

The mean (SD) of conflict resolution in the pre-test was 47.66 (6.11) which increased to 51.86 (8.18) in the post-test the experimental group. Also, the mean (SD) of the child acceptance in the pre-test was 36.93(4.47), which increased to 41.00 (5.85) in the post-test (P=0.001). In the control group, the mean (SD) of conflict resolution and child acceptance in pre-test and post-test were not different. The univariate correlation analysis showed that there is a significant difference between the dimensions of the parent-child relationship between the control and experimental groups in the post-test (p <0.001).

The study showed that mindfulness-based life skills' training is effective on conflict resolution and child acceptance in their parents of children with intellectual disabilities. Therefore, the use of this intervention in the field seems to be beneficial for families with children with ID.