Group counseling for distressed parents of children with mental retardation in Vietnam

• Main Author: Nguyen, Hong Van Thi
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2008
• Subjects: Parents of children with mental disabilities—Vietnam—Psychology; Group counseling; Counseling; Student Counseling and Personnel Services
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/1489
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study used a design that combined qualitative and quantitative method to investigate the emotional distress, needs, coping strategies, and perceived support of parents of children with mental retardation (MR) in Vietnam. In addition, it applied the one group - pretest posttest quasiexperimental to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral counseling group in reducing emotional distress and enhancing parenting skills. The researcher executed the investigation in two phases. Sixty parents of children with MR were interviewed and completed self-report inventories in the Phase I of the study. Ten parents who reported high level of emotional distress in both qualitative and quantitative data were selected to take part in Phase II of the study. They went through group counseling as an intervention. Overall, results indicate that most of the parents have negative experiences which often came from their negative cognition and irrational beliefs. Consequently, they frequently lived with pessimistic ideas and experienced emotional distress. Their level of stress, anxiety, and depression is moderate. These parents reported several needs: financial assistance, stable mental health, time management, and a knowledge about children with MR. They reported using internal and/or external strategies to deal with their emotional distress. Their internal strategies include positive thinking, thought modification, adaptive behavior, and sometimes distraction. They tried adjustment and adaptation to the situation and seeking help from family, friends, neighbors and church communities as their external strategies. These parents perceived support showed up as two domains: formal and informal. Formal support comes from governmental and non-governmental organizations, social and political organizations, and experts in the field. Their family, relatives, religious communities, friends and neighbors were mentioned as their resources i of informal support. The researcher used the results of the Phase I served as the guidelines for designing group counseling program for the participants in the Phase II. As hypothesized, there were significant changes in the parents’ level of emotional distress and parenting skills before and after going through group counseling. Finally, the findings confirm the stability of the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral group counseling as a form of treatment intervention for the parents of children with MR to deal with their emotional distress. The results of the study show a consistency between qualitative and quantitative data. Based on the findings, it is recommended that parents should be supported and given assistance so that they can effectively and successfully cope with their psychological distress and acquire more effective parenting skills. Equipped with these coping and parenting skills, they have a greater chance of promoting their child’s development.