The Effect of Spiritual Skills Training on the Quality of Life in Mothers of Mentally Retarded Children

Background and Objectives: Mentally retarded children put mothers under physical, mental, and social pressures that severely decrease their quality of life. Meanwhile, spiritual skills training programs can lead to the empowerment of mothers in this regard. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of spiritual skills training on the quality of life in mothers of mentally retarded children. Methods: This experimental study was conducted based on a pretest-posttest design with the control group. The data were collected using the World Health Organization's Quality of Life Questionnaire. In total, 20 mothers of mentally retarded children, who had met the inclusion criteria, were selected utilizing convenient random sampling. The participants were then assigned randomly into experimental (n=10) and control groups (n=10). The experimental group received the interventions through eight 90-min to 2-h sessions. The post-test was taken after the intervention. Results: According to the results, the mean±SD values of the quality of life before the intervention were 67.00±11.83 and 67.11±6.25 in the experimental and control groups, respectively, and there were no significant differences between the two groups. However, regarding the mean±SD values of the quality of life after the intervention, the experimental and control groups obtained 72.22±10.10 and 67.33±7.02, respectively, which was statistically significant (P<0.05, F=4.83). Conclusion: According to the obtained results, spiritual skills training have a significant effect on the quality of life in mothers of mentally retarded children. Accordingly, this approach can be utilized as a useful tool to improve the quality of life in mothers of mentally retarded children.