Introduction: Studies show that parents of children with autism disorders are more exposed to the stress of having disabled children than the parents of children with other psychological disorders. All the problems of these children can endanger the quality of life and happiness of their families. The more the ability of people for coping, so the present study with the aim of studying Effectiveness of Cognitive Group Therapy on Quality of Life and Happiness among Mothers of Autistic Children was done.
Methods: The aim of the present study was to examine effectiveness of cognitive group therapy on quality of life and happiness among mothers of autistic children in Shiraz. This study was an experimental study with pretest and posttest with control group design. At first the Quality of Life Questionnaire and Happiness Inventory were administered to mothers of autistic children and after analyzing the data 30 mothers of autistic children who gained lower scores on these tests were selected based on simple random sampling and assigned two groups; experimental and control. The experimental group underwent treatment method for 12 sessions with two month follow up study, but the control group did not receive any treatment.
Finding; Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and showed that there was a significant positive correlation between cognitive group therapy and improvement in quality of life and happiness in mothers with autistic children. Follow up studies showed that cognitive group therapy had a significant effect on in quality of life and happiness in the control sample.
Conclusion: The results showed that the intervention which has been done could improve the quality of life and its dimensions in parents of children with autism, resulting in the increasing happiness of the parents. Hence, this method of therapy can be used as therapy, either alone or in conjunction with other forms of mental health treatment, to supply the mental health of future children and adults.