A Review of Friends Resilience Programs in Reducing Anxiety and Depression in Deaf Children and Their Parents

Some psychological disorders, such as anxiety and depression, are more common among deaf children than their hearing peers. Usually, the resilience of the parents of deaf children is lower than the parents of hearing children. For this reason, some resilience programs used for children and parents are more helpful to parents of deaf children. Friends resilience program, which is based on a cognitive-behavioral approach, is among these programs. The present research aimed to review the role of Friends resilience programs in reducing anxiety and depression in deaf children and their parents. This study was a descriptive and review research. Articles available in reliable scientific databases such as IranDoc, SID, Magiran, ISC, Science Direct, Scopus, PubMed, and Medline were used to collect information. The Friends Resilience programs consist of 10-12 sessions, and it has four separate standardized programs for different age groups, namely, Fun Friends, Friends for Life, My Friends’ Youth, and Adult Resilience Program, respectively. The findings showed that the Friends resilience program reduces the anxiety and stress of parents of hearing children and children with special needs, including deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Therefore, this program can be used as a helpful and practical intervention to reduce psychological problems and improve the mental health of deaf children and their parents.