ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Original Research

Authors

Mallahi   M. (*)
Niknejadi   F. (1 )






(*) Guidance and Counseling Department, Humanities Faculty, Khomeinishahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
(1 ) Guidance and Counseling Department , Humanities Faculty, Khomeinishahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Humanities Faculty, Islamic Azad University, Daneshjoo Boulevard, Khomeinishahr Branch, Isfahan, Iran. Post Code: 841814899
Phone: -
Fax: -
mallahi2000@yahoo.com

Article History

Received:  November  18, 2016
Accepted:  December 19, 2016
ePublished:  March 10, 2017

BRIEF TEXT


Any issue that threatens normal operation of family is considered as mental health threatening factor [1].

… [2-6]. War problems causes the veterans who are fathers to face with some limitations in their establishing and controlling the interaction with their family and their active participation in the development of children; these problems lead to the formation of low levels of self-efficacy in their children [7]. … [8-22]. The results of a study by Motamedian showed that teaching optimism skills could improve high school students’ copying style [23].

This study aimed at examining the effectiveness of optimism skills (positive psychology approach) to improve the paternity condition, dialogue and anger in the relationship between veterans and their daughter and to help improve the quality of mental health in the veterans’ daughters.

This study is semi experimental with pretest-posttest design and a control group.

The study was done among the veterans’ high school daughters in Isfahan city in the academic year 2015-2016.

30 students were selected based on cluster random sampling method and were randomly divided into two groups of experimental (n==15) and control (n=15).

The data collection tool was a paternal questionnaire (father form) that was developed by Finer et al [24] and consisted of 24 questions and four components of positive affect, paternity, relationship or dialogue, and anger in the seven-point Likert scale. Cronbach’s alpha was used to determine the reliability of the test. This method is used for calculating the internal consistency of measurement tool that measures various characteristic. In the study conducted by Parhizgar [25], the calculated reliability questionnaire was 0.93 indicating good internal consistency. The calculated reliability coefficient in this study was 0.934 that showed a good correlation between questions. In the study by Fine et al [24], to determine the validity of this scale, confirmatory factor analysis was used that the results showed a good relationship between the items. At first, pretest was taken from both the control and experimental groups. Then, the subjects in the experimental group received the optimism skills training during eight 60-minute sessions. The purpose of teaching optimism skills is training some of the cognitive and behavioral skills. The skills taught in these sessions were taken from “Positive Thinking and Optimism” by Col.William [4] and “Optimistic Child” by Seligman. In each session after the speech outline, the task was to see the content expressed and the members were exercising on the assignment. At the end of each session, also, an assignment was given to the members and the members were doing the assignment for the next session (Table 1). During this period, Control group, received no training. After administrating the training sessions, posttest was carried out for both groups. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS 16 software in two levels of descriptive and inferential statistics. In the descriptive section, the descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation and in the inferential section, to compare mean and variance into control and experimental groups, univariate analysis of covariance (for controlling intervening variables and the effectiveness of teaching) were used. It should be mentioned that before the analysis of data, Kolmogorov-Smirnov single group test and Shapiro test were used for determining the normality of data; Levin test was used for investigating the homogeneity of dependent variable error variance; and to determine the linearity, linear regression test was used.

In the post-test stage, there was a significant difference between the scores of the two groups in the areas of communication (dialogue), paternal behavior, and anger, and the mean score of these components in the experimental group was significantly different from the control group (p<0.05), however, no significant difference was observed between the two groups in terms of positive affect (p>0.05). Therefore, teaching the optimism skills with controlling the effect of pretest could improve the paternity, communication and anger (except positive affect) in the veterans’ daughters (Table 2).

… [24-29]. During the held meetings, juniors talked about turbulent condition in their family and heard about the same conditions in the other families. This issue helped them to have more realistic view to their family, and their anger was reduced. This finding is consistent with the results of a study by Aboueye Mehrizi et al. [30] that anger management training is one of the most effective exercises in optimism skills, and this has led to the decrease in the adolescent girls’ conflicts in their relation with their parents [30].

The researchers interested in this field are suggested to conduct another study with more sample groups of both sexes at different ages (children and youth) with long-term follow-up (6 months to a year), in the qualitative methods and in other communities such as youth with addicted or divorced parents.

There were some limitation in this study such as short period of administration, lack of fathers’ presence, research type (semi-experimental) and so on.

Teaching optimism skills may result in better condition of paternal behavior, dialogue, and anger between veterans and their student daughters, and improve the quality of their mental health.

We appreciate the sincere cooperation of all adolescent girls in the veteran`s family in the study and all the people who helped us in conducting this study.

Non-declared

Ensuring the confidentiality of this study and preparing the participants mentally and psychologically for this study were the ethical issues in this study.

The financial support of this study has been provided by the authors.

TABLES and CHARTS

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