Background: Handicap is a critical factor with significant effects on family. Stress is the main result of such effects on parents. As a classical procedure, mothers have the major caregiving role to the child; therefore, they experience more stress than other members. Then, development program for stress management is essential.
Objectives: The current study aimed to develop and assess a de-stress training program on decreasing the stress of mothers with mentally retarded children.
Materials and Methods: The current study was a semi-experimental research with Follow-up. Study subjects included 20 mothers with slow paced children connected to a non-governmental organization (NGO) of show paced children in Tehran, Iran. Mothers were randomly divided into experimental and control groups (10 cases in each group). All mothers responded to the parental stress scale used to measure mothers’ stress. Experimental group received de-stress training program for 13 sessions. Post-test was administered in session fourteenth and after one month the results were followed-up. Data were analyzed by univariate analysis of covariance (P < 0.01).
Results: Data presented a significant difference between the control and experiment groups. Also, results did not show a significant difference between the post-test and follow up. It means that the effect of training was persistent.
Conclusions: De-stress training program significantly decreased the stress of mothers with show paced children, and the training effect was persistent.