Offering a Psychological Empowerment Package for Parents and Evaluating its Effectiveness on Psychological Distress in Students with Ineffective Parent-Child Interaction

The present study was conducted to codify the psychological empowerment package for parents and evaluate its effectiveness on the psychological distress of students with ineffective parent-child interaction. The research method is practical and the study was analyzed thematically by a comparative method in the qualitative part and quasi-experimentally with pretest, posttest, control group design and two-month follow-up period in the quantitative part. The statistical population included the students with ineffective parent-child interaction in Tehran city in 2019-2020, who were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group (each group consisted of 20 individuals). Parents of students in the experimental group received ten sessions of the psychological empowerment package. 4 individuals in the experimental group and 3 in the control group terminated their participation in the study. The questionnaires used in this study included the Parent-Child Relationship Questionnaire (PCRQ) and the Psychological Distress Questionnaire (PDQ). The data of the study were analyzed using the mixed ANOVA method. The results showed that the psychological empowerment package had adequate content validity from the experts’ viewpoint. Moreover, this package had an impact on the psychological distress of students with ineffective parent-child interaction (F=39.22; Eta=0.54; P<0001). According to the results of the present study, the psychological empowerment package can be used as an effective method to reduce students’ psychological distress by training mental flexibility, normal parenting style, and emotional involvement with the child. In a practical proposal, it is suggested that the psychological empowerment package is used in psychological clinics.