تأثیر آموزش مدیریت استرس به سبک شناختی-رفتاری بر میزان استرس و سلامت روان والدین دارای فرزند ناتوانی ذهنی

Objective The birth and presence of a child with mental-retardation in any family causes stress, hopelessness,&nbsp;and disappointment, as well as social, economic, and emotional problems. These problems lead to mental&nbsp;health reduction and using inefficient approaches in family. This research aimed to study the effect of education&nbsp;on mental health and stress rate. Also, it examined the effect of several styles of contrasting stress and&nbsp;stress management program on decreasing stress of parents with mentally-retarded children. Materials & Methods Parents of children with intellectual disabilities in Rafsanjan, Iran (2 health centers) completed&nbsp;Harry stress inventory (HIS) and general health questionnaire (GHQ). A total of 60 couples with high&nbsp;scores in these tests were selected and randomly assigned into 2 groups. Experimental group passed stress&nbsp;management course in 6 sessions for 3 weeks (two sessions per week). The educational contents in 6 sessions&nbsp;were as follows: teaching pathology, semiology, and mental health to parents, then 4 ways of therapeutic&nbsp;approaches of opposition, evasion, continence, and social support, and finally problem solving and practicing&nbsp;those skills. Control group did not receive any treatment. After final session, and then 1 month later, 2 groups&nbsp;completed GHQ and HIS (posttest and follow up). Data were analyzed with repeated measures test. Results Average scores of stress rate in pretest and posttest in the experimental group had a significant difference&nbsp;(P=0.001), but this difference was not significant in follow up test (P=0.659). Average scores of mental&nbsp;health in pretest and posttest of experimental group had significant difference (P=0.001), but this difference&nbsp;was not significant in follow up test (P=0.646). With regard to different aspects of general health, the difference&nbsp;between mean scores of physical signs and depressive signs in pretest and posttest of intervention group&nbsp;was significant (P<0.001). However, the mean scores of anxiety signs and social activity in pretest and posttest&nbsp;was not significant (P=0.13, P=0.07). Conclusion Educating stress management with cognitive&ndash;behavioral style could increase the mental health&nbsp;index of parents with mental-retarded children, decrease mothers&rsquo; physical and depressive signs, and improve&nbsp;their sleep and social performance. However, in this study, anxiety signs and social activities of parents did not&nbsp;improve. To explain this finding, it can be said that several variables affect the anxiety and social activities of&nbsp;people. And those factors are out of control of this study. These factors are in direct relation with economic&nbsp;situation of people that were not examined in the present research. Also, education stress management with&nbsp;cognitive&ndash;behavioral style could reduce perceptive stress of parents. Finally, education causes people, including mothers of mentally-retarded children to know themselves better, recognize their strength and weak&nbsp;points, and reach a level of self-recognition that proceed improving their weak points and promoting their&nbsp;strong points. As a result, parents accept better the reality of their mentally-retarded child and better adapt to&nbsp;this situation. This will in turn reduce the mental stress and increase their health status.