@2024 Afarand., IRAN

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ISSN: 2008-2630    Iranian Journal of War & Public Health 2018;10(1):33-39

Background
The stress caused by war is not limited to wartime. After the war, it creates chronic and severe reactions that characterized by psychological damage and physical damage. ... [1]. These factors not only create problems for the individuals themselves, but the families and children of the veterans are also indirectly affected by psychological stresses of the war. The educational problems of children and, consequently, their academic performance is one of the problems [2].
Previous Studies
... [3-7]. The quality of communication between parent and child can affect academic performance. ... [8-11]. The negative impact of the presence of a father who has a psychological damage caused by war on the educational performance of the children is undeniable [12]. The results of a study show that the sense of coherence and academic self-concept significantly affect the father's post-anxiety disorder, and two groups of normal children and veterans’ children differ in their sense of coherence and academic self-concept [13]. ... [14]. Review of literature suggests the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment-based treatment approach on reducing the symptoms of mental and physical distress among people injured in war and their families. In this regard, the results of a study that aimed to determine the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on the mental health of war veterans showed that therapeutic intervention can reduce depression of veterans [15]. In another study aimed at investigating the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on the reduction of stress syndrome in soldiers with posttraumatic stress disorder, the results showed the effectiveness of this treatment [16]. ... [17-21].
Aim(s)
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy with emphasis on educational problems of educational performance of veterans' children.
Research type
The present applied research is a semi-experimental design with pre-post-test design and follow-up with the experimental and control group.
Research society, place and time
This research was performed among all male and female students of the junior and senior high school in Ardakan city in the academic year of 2012-2013 that the number of participants was 260 people.
Sampling method and number
Among these people, 30 were selected through targeted sampling and randomly assigned to two groups of experimental and control (each group of 15). The sample size was selected according to the minimum number of people required to participate in each group and based on the average number of groups in order to provide a better interventional program used in previous studies [15-18]. The criteria for entering the study included at least 50% of injury of father, living with both parents, parental satisfaction for participation in the research, lack of access to similar intervention, no psychological injury of father, and absence of other psychological disorder in parents. These criteria were determined according to the parents' and students' personal reports and reference to the veterans' sacrificial record at the Martyr Foundation.
Used devices&materials
At first, a briefing was held for families, and they were assured of the confidentiality of the information they provided to the researcher. The educational performance questionnaire was used to collect information. This questionnaire was adapted from Pham and Taylor research in 1999 in the field of academic performance, which was validated by Duratek in 2004 for Iranian society [22]. This test has 48 questions that measures five aspects related to academic performance, including academic self-efficacy, emotional effects, academic planning, lack of outcome control, and academic motivation. Academic self-efficacy means a sense of confidence in your ability to fulfill the educational needs and activities. Emotional effects are said to respond to a set of emotions such as anxiety, and worriedness that triggers an individual excitation. Lack of outcome control is the belief of the individual that increasing his performance does not result in change in the desired academic outcome. Educational motivation is also referred to as force-oriented behavior, in order to further study and improve skills and knowledge. Item 7 is not given any score. For the scores of the questionnaire to be aggregate, two subscales that had negative value burden on the student's academic performance, namely the lack of control of the outcome and emotional effects were scored in reverse order. The student answers to the questions in a Likert scale of 5 degree from one (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). The content validity of this questionnaire was confirmed by the experts. Also, exploratory factor analysis, confirmed the validity of the five-factor structure of this questionnaire [22]. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the component of self-efficacy, planning component, emotional effect, lack of outcome control, academic motivation, and total score were 0.92, 0.73, 0.93, 0.64, 0.73, and 0.74 respectively [22]. Before the research, the participants of the experimental and control group responded to the academic performance questionnaire as a pretest. Then, acceptance and commitment therapy with emphasis on educational problem was presented to the participants in the experimental group in 8, 2-hour sessions, once a week [17-19] (Table 1). Control group participants did not receive any training. After the end of the intervention program, as well as two months later, the participants of both groups again responded to the academic performance questionnaire as posttest and follow-up again. Data were analyzed by SPSS 21 software using analysis of variance with repeated measures and Benfronney post hoc test was used to investigate the effect of intervention on the follow-up phase.
Findings by Text
6 and 4 participants from the experimental and control groups respectively had grade of below 15 (Table 2).The mean scores of students in the two groups were nearly equal in terms of academic performance in the pretest. However, in the posttest and follow-up stages, the test group score was more than the control group which was also maintained during the follow-up phase (p<0.001; Table 3).
Main comparison to the similar studies
The results showed that acceptance and commitment-based intervention with an emphasis on academic problem was effective in improving the educational performance of veterans' children and all its subscales are effective, which was consistent with the results of previous studies [15, 23-28]. ... [29-32].
Suggestions
Because of the limited research done in this area, it is suggested that before generalizing the findings to all the veterans' children, similar researches be carried out in the veterans’ children, especially female students, and according to the percentage and type of injury of fathers. It is suggested that future studies consider the interventional variables in their study. Considering the effect of this disorder on the individual and family performance of the veterans, it is suggested that future studies of acceptance and commitment intervention programs be specifically done for post-traumatic veteran children. It is also proposed that this intervention program be performed in specific school for veterans’ and martyrs’ children and the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs should also use this intervention method in their training program for the children of veterans.
Limitations
In this study, interventional variables such as the quality of parent-child relationship, especially mother-child and socioeconomic status, were not controlled. Another limitation of this study was the lack of separation of veterans with post-traumatic disorder (PTSD) from other veterans.
Conclusions
Acceptance and commitment based intervention with emphasis on educational problems is effective on improving the educational performance of veterans' children.
Acknowledgments
We thank all the children of the research participants, their parents as well as the school officials who helped us with this research.
Conflict of interest
There was no conflict of interest among the authors.
Ethical Permissions
Parental satisfaction for the participation of their children was obtained and all students were assured of the confidentiality of their information.
Funding Sources
The financial support of this research has been provided by the authors.

TABLES and CHARTS

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