THE EFFECTS OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT PROGRAM ON LEVELS OF HOPELESSNESS AND OPTIMISM OF MOTHERS WITH MENTALLY DISABLED CHILDREN
Journal Name:
- Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi
Keywords (Original Language):
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Abstract (2. Language):
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a on levels of hopelessness and optimism of mothers of children with mental disability. Psychological support program is not only a kind of counseling group that gives a chance to share their feelings, experiences and opinions but also a kind of training group that gives some information to participants.
Method: The experiment was designed according to pre-test, post-test and follows up test procedure with experiment and control groups. The participants of this study were mothers of children with mental disability. Mothers were randomly selected among the mothers of the students in Bursa Mitat Enç Primary School. Beck Hopelessness Scale which was developed by Beck, Lester and Trexler (1974), were used to measure the level of hopelessness. Life Orientation Test which was developed by Scheir and Carver (1987), were applied in order to measure the levels of optimism. These scales administered to mothers of 41 mentally disabled children in the school year of 2008-2009. The aspect of volunteering has been taken into account in covering samples that are formed from 24 mothers, 12 of which are for the experimental and 12 for the control group. Equivalence of the groups was measured the Kruskal-Wallis H Test and as a result of it, the groups were determined to be equivalent to each other. In experimental group, a 15 session psychological support program, developed by the researcher, was employed. Members of experimental group joined the seances once a week for 2,5- 3 hours. Within this period, mothers were given information about development of their children, information and activities about effective communication and problem solving skills. They expressing themselves in front of the group members, have released that they were not the only ones who were having these problems and they felt that they were not alone. As they had an interaction with the other family members, they experienced the ways of effective communication with their children and families around them. They were given a chance to share their feelings, experiences and opinions which gave them the opportunity to relieve. During this period, in the control group no experiment was implemented. So mothers in the control group did not receive group counselling. The post-tests were collected from experimental and control groups after the experimental study on experiment group. Follows up measures for two scales were taken one month later from the end of the experimental sessions. At the end of the research, the data were analyzed by applying in Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test and Kruskal–Wallis H Test in order to determine whether there was a meaningful difference between the test points in the pre-test and post-test and post-test and follow up assessments.
Findings: The results of this study indicated that there was a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group gained from hopelessness and optimism (p<.05). In other words, the psychological support program was effective in increasing the optimism and reducing the hopelessness of mothers in experimental group. Also there was no significant difference between post-test and follows up test scores of experimental group gained from hopelessness and optimism. It can be said that the effects on the levels of hopelessness and optimism of mothers continued a month after the end of the program. Moreover, levels of hopelessness and optimism of mothers in the control group didn’t change significantly. The pre-test and post-test measures obtained from Beck Hopelessness Scale and Life Orientation Test indicated that there was no significant difference between the control and experimental groups. This result showed that the psychological support program didn’t create a significant difference on levels of hopelessness and optimism between mothers in the experimental group and the control group. As a consequence, it was understood that psychological support program reduced levels of hopelessness, increased levels of optimism of the experimental group.
Results and Suggestions: The results showed that the applied the psychological support program was effective on increasing optimism affects and decreasing hopelessness affects of mothers in experimental group, and this effect was independent of the time passing and it was long lasting. According to results of this study, development and implementation of psychological support and counseling programs are important. It is thought that creating relaxing counseling groups and training seminars can decrease very important deficiencies about family counseling in special education. For further research, working with other family members of children with different types of disabilities is recommended. The findings of the research were interpreted and discussed in the light of the literature and some suggestions were made.
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Abstract (Original Language):
Bu araştırmanın amacı, araştırmacı tarafından hazırlanmış olan “Psikolojik Destek Programı”nın, zihinsel yetersizliği olan çocukların annelerinin umutsuzluk ve iyimserlik düzeylerine etkisini incelemektir. Araştırma, deney ve kontrol gruplu ön-test, son-test ve izleme testi modeline dayalı deneysel bir çalışmadır. Bu araştırmada yer alan zihinsel yetersizliği olan çocukların annelerinin umutsuzluk ve iyimserlik düzeylerini belirlemek amacıyla “Beck Umutsuzluk Ölçeği” ve “Yaşam Yönelimi Testi”, 41 zihinsel yetersizliği olan çocuk annesine uygulanmıştır. Araştırmaya katılmakta gönüllü olan 12 anne deney grubuna alınmış, kontrol grubu içinse 12 kişi rastgele örnekleme yoluyla seçilmiştir. Grupların denkliği Kruskal –Wallis H Testi ile ölçülmüş ve birbirine denk olduğu belirlenmiştir. Deney grubuna, araştırmacı tarafından geliştirilen 15 oturumluk “Psikolojik Destek Programı” uygulanmış, kontrol grubuyla herhangi bir çalışma yapılmamıştır. Son test, deney grubunun uygulaması bittikten hemen sonra deney ve kontrol gruplarına, izleme testi ise uygulamadan bir ay sonra sadece deney grubuna verilmiştir. Uygulanan deneysel işlemin sonunda elde edilen veriler “Wilcoxon Eşleştirilmiş Çiftler İşaretlenmiş Sıra Sayıları Testi” ve “Kruskal–Wallis H Testi” ile incelenmiştir. Deneysel işlem sonrasında, deney grubunun umutsuzluk ve iyimserlik öntest ve sontest puanları arasında istatistiksel açıdan anlamlı düzeyde fark bulunmuştur. Uygulanan psikolojik destek programının, deney grubundaki annelerin umutsuzluk düzeylerini düşürmede ve iyimserlik düzeylerini artırmada etkili olduğu ve bu etkinin bir ay sonraya kadar devam ettiği belirlenmiştir.
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