Parent of children with autism face challenges placing them at risk for high level of stress and other negative psychological outcomes. Involvement of parents in implementing intervention strategies designed to help their children can reduce these negative outcomes.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of Parent Education and Skill Training Program (PESTP) on reducing stress of mothers with preschool children with autism.
21 mothers of children aged 3-7 years participated in this study. They were randomly allocated to experimental and control group; participants in the latter group received eleven sessions of training with the PESTP.
All participants completed Parenting Stress Index (PSI) at pre and post training and after a70-day follow-up.
Data obtained from this study analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance.
The results showed that training with the PESTP reduced maternal stress (p<0/05). This finding confirms the effectiveness of parent training in reducing stress of mothers of children with autism.