Comparing compassion fatigue, psychological distress and mindfulness skills among mothers of the children with cerebral paralysis (CP) and mothers of healthy ones

The emergence of acute and chronic physical diseases in children causes damage to parents, especially mothers’ mental health. Therefore the present study was conducted aiming to compare compassion fatigue, psychological distress and mindfulness skills among mothers of the children with CP and mothers of healthy ones. It had a causal-comparative method. The statistical population included mothers of CP children and healthy ones in the city of Tehran in 2016. The sample size was 100 mothers of CP children and 100 healthy ones who were selected through a non-random convenient sampling method. The applied questionnaires included vocational life quality (Stam, 2005), psychological distress questionnaire (Kesler et al., 2002) and mindfulness skills questionnaire (Bier, Smith and Allen, 2004). The data analysis was done through MANOVA. The results of data analysis showed that there is a significant difference between compassion fatigue, psychological distress, and mindfulness skills among mothers of CP children with and mothers of healthy ones (p<0.0001) in a way that mothers of CP children have higher compassion fatigue and psychological distress and lower mindfulness skills than the mothers of healthy ones. According to the findings of the present study, mothers of CP children have higher compassion fatigue and psychological distress and lower mindfulness skills due to treatment and psychological involvement with their children’s sickness; so, there needs to use treatments related to these components such as mindfulness and acceptance and commitment treatment to improve them.