Study On Effects Of Solution-Focused Brief Group Intervention On Post-traumatic Growth Of Parents Of Children With Autism

Objectives: In recent decades, the incidence of children with autism increased year by year.Autism has a serious impact on the children themselves and their parents. Parents of childrenwith autism play a critical role in the growth and treatment of children with autism, and theirmental health have a direct impact on the rehabilitation process of children with autism. Atpresent, the corncern on the parents of children with autism is inadequate, some rehabilitationinstitutes of children with autism have not yet provided parents with psychologicalintervention. In the context of this reality, it is of great significance for parents to dig theirown potential to promote the posttraumatic growth (PTG). This study is to describe the PTGtrajectory of parents of children with autism; investigating the PTG level of parents raising achild with autism and its influencing factors; build the schedule of Solution-focused BriefTreatment groupwork and through empirical research to explore its impacts on the PTG andthe other related psychosocial variables. Based on the findings, clinical nurses and socialworkers in special agency of disabled children’s rehabilitation could carry out psychologicalintervention for parents who have a child with autism. With the foundation of a shortage ofresources and lack of intervention at this stage, this study is benefitial for parents of childrenwith autism to gain positive psychological adjustment.Methods: The study is divided into four parts:(1) A qualitative analysis of psychologicalexperience of the parents of children with autism after they receiving a diagnosis of autism oftheir children, by semi-structured interview with13parents to understand the trajectory oftheir PTG.(2) Investigation of the PTG and its influencing factors in parents of children withautism. Using demographic questionnaires, the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS),Post-traumatic Growth Inventory-Chinese version (PTGI-C), Perceived Social Support Scale(PSSS), the Event Related Rumination Inventory-Chinese version (ERRI-C), SimplifiedCoping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ) investigated104parents of children with autism.(3)Under the guidance of Solution-focused Brief Treatment (SFBT) theory, the groupintervention schedule was built with10Key people’s meeting.(4) Throughquasi-experimental study to explore the effects of SFBT groupwork on the PTG and itsrelating factors in parents of children with autism. Using convenience sampling methods toenroll45parents of children with autism, of which20were divided into two SFBT groupswho undergoing a6-session groupwork, and the remaining25parents of children with autism were assigned as the control grou2focus group interviews were carried out to learn thefeelings and thoughts of the parents of children with autism who participated the SFBTgroupwork.Results:(1) Semi-structured interviews found that parents of children with autism haveexperienced emotional trauma after receiving the diagnosis of autistic children, theirtraumatic experiences including:①the cognitive impact on their worldview and values,crashed hope, hyper vigilance, dissociation thinking;②emotional insecurity and lack asense of trust, guilt, remorse, shame, hating themselves, accompanied by extreme emotionaloutbursts, negative emotions such as frustration, disappointment, depression, sadness andother experiences;③behavior problems such as social withdrawal and avoidance, becomingirritation and attack, accompanied by other changes in behaviors;④Through ruminationand meaning-making, the parents has gain PTG, the evidence exhibited in4aspects,appreciation of life, personal strength, new possibilities and relating to others. The facilitatingfactors include social support, deliberate rumination and positive coping style.(2) The PTGlevel of the parents of children with autism is58.60±10.83, while the highest aspect ispersonal strength (3.32±0.68), followed by self change (3.05±0.70), appreciation of life(3.96±0.62), new possibilities (2.69±0.83), and relating to others (2.65±0.79). Thefacilitating factors of PTG were social support (β=0.438, P <0.01), deliberate rumination (β=0.217, P <0.05), and positive coping (β=0.312, P <0.05), while intrusive rumination andnegative coping were irrelative factors.(3) The experts met to discuss, the4-time interventionwere modified to6times. The themes were―Knowing each other‖,―Mothers’ problems‖,―Individual goals‖,―Strength analysis‖,―Coping‖,―Review and plan‖.(4)18parents ofchildren with autism in the intervention group received6times intervention and together with20parents of children with autism in the control group completed the questionnaires beforethe intervention, after the intervention and6months post intervention. Before the intervention,there were no significant differences between the intervention groups and the control group inthe scores of the studying variables. After6group intervention:①Repeated measuresanalysis of variance showed that the interaction of SFBT group intervention and the timefactor for the PTGI total score and the five subscale scores have significant effects (P <0.05). Analysis of covariance showed that at the end of the intervention, the intervention hassignificant effects towards the PTGI scores and the subscales scores at the end of theintervention; at six months after the end of the intervention, the intervention’s effects on thePTG," new possibilities" and "relationship to others" were still significant (P <0.05).② Repeated measures analysis of variance showed that the interaction of SFBT groupintervention and the time factor on the social support had a significant effect (P <0.05),covariance analysis showed that the intervention’s effects were significant both at the end ofthe intervention and6months after the intervention ended6months (P <0.05);③Theinteraction of the intervention and the time factor was not significant(P>0.05) on thedeliberate rumination of the parents of children with autism, but significant on the intrusiverumination (F=3.065, P=0.053). Covariance analysis showed that at the end of theintervention the effects was significant (F=7.968, P=0.008) while at6months after theintervention was not (F=0.245, P=0.642).④The interaction of the SFBT groupintervention and the time factor on the positive coping (F=3.408, P=0.039), but notnegative coping had a significant effect, covariance analysis showed that at the end of theintervention and6months after the intervention the effects on positive coping were still withstatistical significance (P <0.05).⑤Parents in the intervention group reported that throughSFBT they gained enhanced information and emotional support, changed their viewpoint,shifted targets, had more positive emotional experience and increased access to respiteservices, and delt with the problems in positive way, they recommended combing the otherforms of psychological intervention or expert lectures together.Discussions: Parents of children with autism have traumatic experiences after they receivingtheir children’s diagnosis. Accompanied by pain the PTG will occur, where social support,positive coping and deliberate rumination can promote the PTG of parents of children withautism. SFBT groupwork can immediately increase social support, deliberate rumination andpositive coping of parents of children with autism, and promote all aspects of PTG; however,the role of SFBT groupwork in reducing intrusive rumination and negative coping role are notobvious. In the long-term effects, SFBT groupwork’s effect on the positive coping and growthin "relationships with others" and "personal strength" maintained, however the effects on theremaining variables were not significant, suggesting increasing the number of interventions,or a combination with other interventions are necessary. Parents of children with autismperceived that the SFBT group intervention brought positive changes. According to thefeedback from the parents of children with autism, SFBT group intervention plays itspotential role in changing coping style, increasing social support, providing role models,respite and successful experience, enhancing self-efficacy, suggesting that future researchcould include more variables to explore the comprehensive mechanism of the effects of theSFBT group intervention in promoting the PTG of the parents of children with autism.