The Effectiveness of Compassion-based Therapy on Post Traumatic Growth in Mothers of Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suffer from developmental and functional defects that can cause serious damages to the family, including mother-child relationships. This study sought to determine the effectiveness of compassion-based therapy on post-traumatic growth in mothers of children with ADHD. Method: This study was a semi-experimental study with pretest-posttest control group design. The sample of this study included 20 mothers with children with ADHD in Isfahan city in 2017 who were selected by purposeful sampling and were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. Data were collected using the Tedeschi and Calhoun scale (1996). Participants in the experimental group received a compassion-based therapy in 8 sessions of 90 minutes, whereas the control group received no intervention. For analyzing the data, covariance analysis was used. Results: The results showed that the method of compassion-based therapy improved the sense of internal power and change in goals and priorities of life, while it had no effect on the feeling of proximity and intimacy with others and trying to maintain relationships with others. (p <0.05). Conclusion: According to the findings of this study, it can be concluded that compassionfocused therapy can be used to manage, organize and prioritize activities in mothers of children with ADHD.

Comparison of the Effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Therapy and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Experiential Avoidance and Post-Traumatic Growth in Sexually Abused Girls

“…Another finding of the research showed that Compassion-Focused Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral-Therapy lead to an increase in post-traumatic growth in sexually abused girls. This finding is consistent with the results of prior studies (Ha et al, 2019;Kiarasi et al, 2022;Navab et al, 2019;Salemi et al, 2017;Zamani et al, 2021). In explaining this finding, it can be said that compassion therapy promotes kindness and compassion towards hardships, sufferings, and experiences, leading individuals to blame themselves less.…”

“…Mahmoudi, Jaberi, and Rahimi (2013) standardized this questionnaire for the Iranian population and reported that the Persian version of this questionnaire includes four components: sense of inner strength, change in goals and priorities, sense of intimacy and closeness with others, and effort to maintain relationships with others. They reported that the correlation coefficient of scores from the double measurement was 0.94 (Kiarasi et al, 2022;Navab et al, 2019). In the present study, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the entire questionnaire was determined at 0.85.…”

“…These factors help them employ more effective coping strategies (Ha et al, 2019). Moreover, combining mindfulness and compassion practices prevents individuals from comparing themselves to others in the face of painful experiences and helps them understand failures, inadequacies, rejections, and exclusions non-judgmentally and establish better connections with themselves; thus, creating sufficient space for post-traumatic growth (Navab et al, 2019). Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy helps these individuals accept the traumatic event more and avoid thoughts and symptoms that remind them of the traumatic event, emphasizing learning new behaviors that lead to changes in living practices and organizing their actions based on new learnings, giving them an opportunity to learn new and specific skills such as reducing experiential avoidance.…”

“…Self-compassion involves caring for oneself in the face of perceived shortcomings and difficulties; in such A E-ISSN: 2981-2526 a way that painful and uncomfortable feelings are not avoided, but rather approached with kindness, understanding, and a sense of shared humanity (Braehler & Neff, 2020). In this context, the results of various studies have shown that Compassion-Focused Therapy is effective on experiential avoidance in adolescents (Karimi et al, 2020), experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion (Farokhi et al, 2018), post-traumatic growth in women (Kiarsi et al, 2021;Navab et al, 2019), post-traumatic growth after a romantic breakup (Karimi et al, 2020;Navab et al, 2019), post-traumatic growth in women with cancer (Sadeghpour et al, 2020), cognitive-behavioral avoidance in depressed adolescents (Bakker, 2017), increased post-traumatic growth in sexual abuse victims (Ha et al, 2019), reduction of experiential avoidance and increased flexibility (Godini et al, 2019).…”

Effectiveness of Cognitive Rehabilitation Program Based on Prospective Memory on the Attention Rate in the Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

“…The findings of this study indicated that this program improved attention in these children. This is consistent with the results of different researches (20)(21)(22)(23), all of which indicate the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation program on the amount of attention.…”