The Effect of Life Skills Training on Parental Stress of Women Health Volunteers with Children Aged Less than Seven Years

Background & Aims: One of the most important events in life is accepting the parental role which causes a lot of stress regarding its responsibilities and expectations. Parental stress is caused by a perceived mismatch between parental responsibilities and personal resources such as some of the child characteristics including poor response, behavioral problems, child adjustment, as well as specific parental characteristics such as flexibility, anxiety, and life skills deficits in interaction with the child characteristics. High levels of parental stress disrupt parent-child interactions and even, low levels of parental stress and parental inefficiency are linearly related, making parents, especially mothers, more captious, stricter, and more sensitive, which in turn leads to behavioral problems and emotional development disorders in their children. Since the emotional and psychological state of the parents is influential during the childhood of their children, there is a need for appropriate methods to overcome this stress. Numerous studies have shown that teaching life skills to parents is one of the most effective and efficient therapeutic methods with a positive and significant effect on reducing parental stress and children's stress, and the most appropriate way to develop skills and change behavior is to hold life skills workshops. Accordingly, this study aimed to determine the effect of life skills training on parental stress in women health volunteers with children under 7 years old in Abhar city. women introduced the research the inclusion selected and completed the The about the age of the volunteers, their husbands and children, the of children, the and of their their education their husbands' education and the duration of their The Stress Index- Short Form (SF-PSI), with 36 questions on a 5-point Likert scale with a score of 1-5, and three of 12 questions about three subscales of parental distress, parent-child dysfunctional interactions, and difficult child were them. A total score than 90 indicates high parental stress. The experimental group participants were into two groups of to undergo treatment for 5 sessions. The included group life skills training programs such as self-awareness, self-esteem, and self-confidence skills, effective communication skills and bravery, emotion and anger control skills, stress management skills, and problem-solving skills. Content validity of the materials The educational were in the form of questions and lectures, role-play, and practical and home for three weeks, and two 105 minute sessions per week. the group did not receive any and in the end, both the post-test five after the The both study was observed during the study. Descriptive and inferential statistics were first calculated and then the hypotheses were analyzed using the statistical methods of independent t-test, ANCOVA, and Mann-Whitney test at a significant level of P≤0.01. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 16 and statistical tests. Results: There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of age, their education level, their husbands' education level, income, the number of children, their age and sex, and duration of cooperation. The mean scores of parental stress in the pre-test were 109.13 ± 3.1 and 114.3 ± 16.39 for the control and the experimental group respectively. The mean scores of parental stress in the post-test (five weeks after the intervention) were 97.6 ± 14.52 and 89.8 ± 17.83 for the control and experimental groups respectively, indicating a statistically significant difference between the two groups (P≤0.001). The results showed that life skills training reduced parental stress in the experimental group. The parental anxiety subscale in the experimental group decreased from 40.1 ± 7.36 to 28.8 ± 3.24. The subscales of the parent-child interaction decreased from 33.5 ± 7.09 to 27.93 ± 3.88, while decreasing from 40.7 ± 5.37 to 33.3 ± 1.65 in the difficult child. After treatment, the mean scores of parental stress and parental anxiety of the experimental group were significantly lower than the control group, indicating less stress of this group compared to the control group (P<0.001). Conclusion: The results showed that the life skills training program in women health volunteers reduces the mean scores of parental stress and stress subscales. Therefore, teaching life skills to parents is necessary, and it is recommended that the necessity of life skills training become a culture among the public, and the authorities and managers of health care pay more attention to holding life skills training workshops for parents.