This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an empowerment program that includes both parent training and motivational interviewing for parents of children with autism, supporting their competence in the care of their children.
This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of an empowerment program for parents of children with autism to support their competence in caring for their children. This randomized controlled study was conducted in Manisa city center/Turkey, in 2022. A total of 69 parents (intervention: 34, control: 35) were included in this unblinded, two-group randomized controlled interventional study. A parent empowerment program, including four parental training sessions and two motivational interview sessions, were applied to the parents in the intervention group. The Parental Self-Efficacy Scale, Zarit Care Burden Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, and Family Empowerment Scale were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the empowerment program.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
69
The empowerment program consisted of two parts: the empowerment training program for parents and motivational interviews. The empowerment training program was prepared to enable parents to carry out the care process more effectively in areas where parents have difficulties caring for their children with autism. Within the scope of the empowerment training program, parents were trained on the importance of play and communication, problems and management in the field of nutrition, sleep problems and management, safety and protection from accidents, and problems and management in the field of self-care. Ten days after the empowerment training program, two face-to-face motivational interviews were conducted with each participant in the intervention group. Each participant had a one-week break between the first and second motivational interviews. Each motivational interview session lasted approximately 25-30 minutes.
Manisa Celal Bayar University
Manisa, Turkey (Türkiye)
The parental self-efficacy scale scores
The scale was developed by Guimond et al. (2005) to measure the self-efficacy of parents of children with disabilities regarding parenting skills (Guimond et al., 2005). The Turkish adaptation of the scale was first made by Diken (2007) and then by Cavkaytar et al. (2014) (Cavkaytar et al., 2014; Diken, 2007). The Parental Self-Efficacy Scale is a seven-point Likert-type rating scale consisting of 17 items. The lowest and highest values that can be taken from the scale are 17 and 119. Higher scores indicate higher self-efficacy perceptions. The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient value of the scale was calculated as 0.95 (Cavkaytar et al., 2014). The Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient value of the scale in this study is 0.96.
Time frame: Three months
The zarit care burden scale scores
The Zarit Care Burden Scale was developed by Zarit et al. in 1980 and adapted to Turkish by Inci and Erdem (2006). The scale is a 22-item, five-point Likert-type scale used to evaluate the stress experienced by caregivers of individuals in need of care. A minimum score of 0 and a maximum score of 88 can be obtained from the scale. The higher the score obtained from the scale, the higher the care burden felt. The Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient value of the scale was found to be 0.75 in the original study (Inci and Erdem, 2006; Zarit et al., 1980) and 0.89 in this study.
Time frame: Three months
The perceived stress scale scores
The Perceived Stress Scale was developed by Cohen et al. (1983) and adapted into Turkish by Eskin et al. This 14-item, five-point Likert-type scale has two sub-dimensions: inadequate self-efficacy perception and stress/discomfort perception. Higher scores indicate higher levels of perceived stress. The Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient for the entire scale was 0.90, with the sub-dimensions scoring 0.86 and 0.83, respectively (Cohen et al., 1983; Eskin et al., 2013). In this study, the Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient was found to be 0.75 for the overall scale and 0.73 and 0.75 for the sub-dimensions, respectively.
Time frame: Three months
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The family empowerment scale scores
The Family Empowerment Scale, developed by Singh et al. (1995) and adapted into Turkish by Karakul et al. (2018), consists of 34 questions and three sub-dimensions, rated on a four-point Likert scale. Higher scores indicate stronger family empowerment. The Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient for the entire scale was 0.89. The sub-dimensions had the following Cronbach's alpha values: 0.79 for the Family subdimension, 0.83 for the Service system subdimension, and 0.79 for the Community/Political sub-dimension (Karakul et al., 2018; Singh et al., 1995). In this study, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.79 for the overall scale, 0,83 for the family dimension, 0,89 for the services sub-dimension and 0,85 the community/political sub-dimension.
Time frame: Three months