ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Original Research

Authors

Pardar   Ch. (1)
RezaKhani   S. (*)






(*) Consultation Department, Educational Sciences & Counseling Faculty, Roodehen Branch, Islamic Azad University, Roodehen, Iran
(1) Consultation Department, Educational Sciences & Counseling Faculty, Roodehen Branch, Islamic Azad University, Roodehen, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Educational Sciences & Counseling Faculty, Roodehen Branch, Islamic Azad University, Khamene’i Boulevard, Roodehen, Iran
Phone: +98 (21) 88754506
Fax: +98 (21) 88754506
rezakhani@riau.ac.ir

Article History

Received:  September  4, 2017
Accepted:  November 5, 2017
ePublished:  January 11, 2018

BRIEF TEXT


Family members' interactions are interconnected like a chain links and interact with each other. Therefore, the members of the veteran family, especially the spouse are not excluded from this rule. Through interaction with the veteran, she has been affected by his psychological characteristics and may have problems such as guilt, anger, hatred, and despair in the long term [1].

The results of some studies show that life expectancy is lower in spouses of veterans that in spouses of ordinary people [2]. … [3-6]. Young Tesse research has shown that hope has a significant contribution to the improvement of various mental illnesses [7]. … [8-9]. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how flexible human beings are when dealing with difficulties. Also, self-efficacy beliefs affect the thinking patterns and emotional actions of individuals. Therefore, people with low self-efficacy may believe that problem is insolvable, and it is a belief that cultivates stress, despair, depression and a narrow vision of problem solution [10]. … [11, 12]. It seems that communicative skills are needed for better self-efficacy. … [13, 14]. The result of Shailing et al.'s research has shown that learning communication skills reduce the risk of advancement in marital problems [15]. Aslani in his research examines the role of communication skills in family efficacy. His research sample was 16 couples of married students at the University of Tehran. The results of this study showed that communication skills training increased the family's efficiency in problem solving, communication, roles, emotional accompaniment, family behavior, and family functioning [16]. Falahati in a research on veterans 'spouses have shown that life skills training had a significant effect on improving the quality of life of veterans' spouses [17]. Jafari Shirazi's research titled effectiveness of life skills training on increasing the self-efficacy of female headed household in the municipality of Tehran has shown that there is a positive and significant relationship between the skills training and increasing self-efficacy of female headed households [18].

By studying research on effectiveness of communication skills training, it can be concluded that there is no research in the field that directly investigates the effectiveness of communication skills training on increasing self-efficacy and hopefulness of veterans' wives. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of communication skills training on increasing self-efficacy and hopefulness of veterans' wives.

The present research is a semi-experimental design with pretest-posttest design with control group.

This research was carried out among the veterans' wives in Ravansar city, who had 10 years of membership in the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs of the city of Ravansar until the beginning of 2014.

In semi-experimental designs, a minimum sample size is estimated 30 [19]. Therefore, 30 people were selected through targeted sampling. Regarding the statistical population, the researcher, in meeting with the management of the Foundation of Martyr and Veterans Affairs, obtained his consent to hold a communication skills training course (as an independent variable for research) to increase self-efficacy and hope (as dependent variables of research). Following that, with the coordination of the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs and referring to the veterans` files, 70 were invited to participate in a referral session on the holding of an educational communication skills training course. Then, self-efficacy and hopefulness questionnaire were performed among them. 32 subjects had low self-efficacy and hope. At this stage, two participants refuse to participate in the research. Therefore, 30 subjects were randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups (each group was 15).

The tools used in the study included the general self-efficacy Scale (GES-10) [20-22] and Schneider Hope Scale [3, 4, 23-25]. Communication skills training was provided in 8 90-minute sessions once a week (Table 1).The control group also did not receive any training. After the end of the training period, self-efficacy and hopefulness questionnaire were again performed as a posttest among the subjects in the experimental and control groups. Data were analyzed using SPSS 20 software. In the beginning, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to check the normal distribution of the data and Mbox and Levene tests were used to examine the homogeneity of variances and then multivariate analysis of variance was used.

Experimental group samples were the wives of veterans with 25% injury and the control group samples, were the wives of veterans with 50% injury. In the experimental group, 10 and 5 subjects had educational level below diploma and diploma and higher respectively and in the control group, 8 and 7 had education level diploma and diploma and higher respectively. By controlling the effect of pretest, there was a significant difference between the posttest scores of experimental and control group in terms of the variables of self-efficacy, hopefulness, and components of agency thinking and strategic thinking. Communication skills training resulted in 32% and 63% of change in the components of self-efficacy and hopefulness and 59% and 49% of the changes in the components of agency thinking and strategic thinking respectively (Table 2).

Results showed that communication skills training had a positive and significant effect on self-efficacy of spouses of war veterans. The result of this research was consistent with findings of Jafari Shirazi [18], Shiling et al. [15]. Aslani [16] and Oghoomi and Mabokjah [11]. Also, communication skills training had a positive and significant effect on hopefulness and its components (agency thinking and strategic thinking) in spouses of veterans. This result was also connected with the findings of Ghorbanalipour et al. [6], Schnieder [4], Heidari [2], Falahati [17] and Yang [7].

Despite the limitations mentioned above, according to the results of the present study, future researchers are recommended to conduct follow-up studies and the research with similar topics in metropolises and the large statistical community, so that a more logical comparison to effectiveness can be made. Future researchers are advised to use the impact of other educational tools on self-efficacy and hope to compare them. It is recommended that training be provided to the control group in order to comply with the ethics of research.

One of the limitations of this research was non-random selection of individuals that can affect the validity of the research. Also, no follow-up study was done because of time limit. In other words, the researcher could not test the experimental groups after six months to ensure the intervention was continued. Therefore, this case can affect the validity and generalizability of the findings and that the findings of this research are only applicable to the veterans' wives of the city of Ravansar and should be wary in their generalization to the wives of veterans in other cities.

Communication skills training increases the self-efficacy and hopefulness of veterans' wives.

Thanks of the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs of the city of Ravansar and the wives of the veterans who participated in the research.

Non-declared

Prior to conducting research, coordination with the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs of the city of Ravansar was carried out and satisfaction of the samples was obtained.

This research has been the subject of a master`s thesis of the author of the first article and no financial support has been made from nay university, institution, or organization.

TABLES and CHARTS

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