Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: In recent years, the diagnosis of children with special needs has been intensified. Children and mentally–retarded people with intellectual disabilities are being investigated and studied nowadays, because the existence of a mentally–retarded child with intellectual disabilities brings irreparable damage to the family and increases the psychological pressure, social isolation, and disturbance in their mental health. Mothers of mentally–retarded children, who are the main caregivers of their children, suffer from mental exhaustion more than other family members. Fathers participate less in care activities compared to mothers. Rumination is an important component in the relationship between mothers with mentally–retarded children. People with rumination have more difficulty tolerating uncertainty compared to other disorders, and people who do not tolerate uncertainty may be more vulnerable to rumination. Given the problems that mothers with mentally–retarded children face, it seems necessary to provide interventions for this group of mothers. Mindfulness therapy can be effective in addressing the issues of such individuals. So, the purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of mindfulness training on the rumination of mothers with mentally–retarded children living in Flowerjan County, Iran.
Methods: The current research was quasi–experimental and employed a pretest–posttest design with a control group. The statistical population of the study included all mothers with mentally–retarded children under the education of Ekhlas School for Exceptional Children in Flowerjan City. First, the researcher (first author of the article) visited the Ekhlas School for Exceptional Children in Falavarjan city. Then, by administering the Rumination Response Scale to about 70 mothers with mentally–retarded children educated at this school, 30 eligible volunteers with a score of more than 58 on the Rumination Response Scale entered the study. Next, 15 people were randomly assigned to the intervention group and 15 to the control group. The inclusion criteria for the subjects in the study were as follows: willingness and informed consent to participate in the study, mothers aged 30–45 with mentally–retarded child, minimum level of education of a high school diploma, children with an IQ in the range of 50–70, no history of psychiatric disorder or medication use, and no use of other treatments during the study. The exclusion criteria were absent from treatment sessions more than once, expressing unwillingness to continue cooperation, and not completing the questionnaire during the study. The experimental group received eight 120–minute sessions of mindfulness training. Rumination Response Scale (Nolen–Hoeksma & Morrow, 1991) scores were compared at two time points before and after group mindfulness training. Research data analysis was performed in SPSS version 17 software. In the descriptive statistics section, the mean and standard deviation of the scores related to the variables were reported. In the inferential statistics section, data analysis was performed using the analysis of covariance statistical test. The significance level of the tests was set at 0.05.
Results: The results showed a significant difference in the mean rumination scores between the intervention group receiving mindfulness training and the control group at the posttest (p<0.001). Based on the effect size results, 64% of the difference between the intervention and control groups in rumination was due to the implementation of group mindfulness training.
Conclusion: According to the study findings, group mindfulness training can be considered a scientific way to empower mothers with mentally–retarded children.