P17: The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Reducing Internalizing Symptoms in Children and Reducing Parental Stress in Mothers

The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on reducing internalizing symptoms in children and reducing parental stress (PS) in mothers. Research design of this study was Quasi-experimental research with a pre/post test design with a control group. Using cluster sampling from among all the school children of the 2013-2014 school year at Isfahan city, 20 children (n=10 experimental and n= 10 control group) 5 and 6 age with internalizing problems (anxiety/depression and depression/isolation) were selected as sample. The mothers of these children based on (PS) scale require psychological treatments. Mothers and children in the experimental group, attended separately for ten week in ten sessions with 60 minutes duration in group therapy sessions (ACT). Mothers completed in the pre-test and post-test (PS) (Abidin, 1990) and Achenbach (2001) Questioner. Analysis of covariance was used. The results obtained showed that the symptoms of anxiety/depression in children and parental stress at intervention group compared with the control group was significantly decreased (P<0.05). However, reducing anxiety/depression and depression/isolation was not observed in any groups. ACT can be an effective way to reduce the symptoms of anxiety/depression in children and parental stress in mothers. However, according to the results, using this method to reduce the symptoms of isolation/depression in children requires further research.