The effects of self-help stress management and parental training on the adjustment of single divorced mothers

Abstract

Research findings showed that single, divorced mothers could be a population in need of counselling because they faced a variety of chronic stressors, including the demands of parenting itself. In the present study it was argued that the most effective treatment for single parents would be group parental training which was supplemented with a self-help stress management programme. A quasi-experimental, 2 x 2 design was used. Subjects (N = 40) were presented, over a period of 10 weeks, with a parental training programme based on the skills-training model and a self help stress management programme based on the stress inoculation model. They either received both programmes, or only the parental training programme, or only the stress management programme, or were placed in a waiting list control group .. Each subject's adjustment was measured on 10 indices (Contentment, self-esteem, Parental Attitudes, Well-being, Tension, Depression, Anxiety, Vigour, Fatigue and Confusion) at a pre test, post test and follow-up. An analysis of the changes in each group found that the combined treatment group showed more significant improvements than any of the other three groups. An analysis of variance between groups found that if pre test differences were taken into account, groups did not differ significantly at the post test and follow-up.