The Effect of Positivism Group Training on Psychological Health in Mothers of Children with Autism

Introduction: Psychological health in mothers of children with autism is reduced due to many problems that they face. Therefore, they should look for methods to improve their psychological characteristics. As a result, the purpose of this research was determined the effect of positivism group training on psychological health in mothers of children with autism.  Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. Research population was mothers of children with autism of Ahvaz city in the spring season of 2018 year. Research sample was 40 people that selected by available sampling method and randomly with using lottery replaced into two equal groups. Experimental group trained 8 sessions of 90 minutes by positivism method and control group placed on the waiting list for training. Research instruments were the questionnaires of Toronto alexithymia, life expectancy and psychological hardiness. Data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance method. Results: The findings showed that there was a significant difference between the groups in terms of alexithymia, life expectancy and psychological hardiness. In the other words, positivism group training led to decrease alexithymia and increase life expectancy and psychological hardiness in mothers of children with autism (P<0.001). Conclusions: The results indicated the importance of positivism group training on improving the alexithymia, life expectancy and psychological hardiness in mothers of children with autism. Therefore, positivism group training method can be used for interventions related to psychological health such as decreasing alexithymia and increasing life expectancy and psychological hardiness.