effectiveness of acceptance and commitmentbased therapy on psychological flexibility and resilience in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorders

Background: one of the most stressful experiences for anyfamily is managing a child with a disability, disorder, orchronic illness. the present study was conducted to evaluatethe effectiveness of acceptance and commitment-based therapyon psychological flexibility and resilience among mothers withautistic children in shiraz.methods: this is a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest studywith a control group. the statistical population of the presentstudy included mothers with autistic children referring to theautism community in shiraz city at 1398. according to the semiexperimentaldesign and the criteria for research, a sample of36 patients (each group of 18) was selected randomly. sampleswere randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups.the experimental group received 8 sessions of “acceptance andcommitment therapy”. the instrument for collecting informationincluded the cognitive flexibility questionnaire (cfi) andconnor & davidson resilience questionnaire. data wereanalyzed through spss software using covariance.results: the results showed that commitment-based therapyis effective in increasing the mental flexibility and resilience ofmothers of children with autism (p=0.001).conclusion: based on the findings, it can be concluded thatacceptance and commitment therapy is effective in improvingthe mental health of mothers with childhood autism.