Determination of the efficacy of an adapted parental reflective functioning program on the stress of anxious mothers

One of the variables related to mothers' stress is their reflective action. The act of reflection or mentalization is a clear manifestation of the narration of the capacity of mentalization in people. The important role of the mother as the primary and main caregiver of the child and, following that, the effect of stress on a wide range of the mother's performance, including in the mentalization process between her and the child, it reveals the necessity of reflective parenting programs adapted to mother's mentalization in order to reduce the stress of anxious mothers, But the review of previous studies shows that there is a research gap in this field.

The present study was conducted with the aim of determining the efficacy of the adapted parental reflective functioning program on the stress of anxious mothers.

The method of the current research was a quasi-experiment of pre-test-post-test type with a control group. The statistical population of the research included all anxious mothers living in Tehran in 2022. Sampling was done by announcing a call in three kindergartens and four psychological clinics in Tehran and using the available purposeful sampling method among volunteer mothers with anxiety symptoms. Finally, 20 anxious mothers (with a minimum average anxiety score in the Beck anxiety test) were selected as a statistical sample and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. The main data collection tool included the Parenting Stress Index – short form (Abidin, 1995). During 8 sessions, the experimental group received the adapted parental reflective functioning program to the mentalization of the mother, but the members of the control group did not receive any intervention. Also, covariance analysis method and SPSS-20 software were used for data analysis.

The results of the covariance analysis test in the present study showed that the reflective adapted parental reflective functioning program among the three subscales of parental stress, it significantly reduced parental distress and parent-child dysfunctional interaction (P<0.001), But it was not effective in reducing the subscale scores of difficult child characteristics.

Considering the effectiveness of the adapted parental reflective functioning program on the level of stress of anxious mothers in the present study, it seems that training parents in this field can be one of the most appropriate methods to improve mother-child interactions, the formation of secure attachment in children and subsequently, the reduction of the stress level of anxious mothers.