The effect of a religiously integrated psycho-educational group counseling program on psychological resilience, parenting stress, and rumination levels: A study on mothers of children with special needs

The aim of this research is to examine the effect of religiously integrated psycho- education-based group counseling on increasing the psychological resilience levels, reducing the parenting stress, and decreasing the ruminative thinking styles of mothers who have children with special needs. The research was conducted using a pre-test–post-test control group experimental design. The study group consisted of a total of 24 mothers of children with special needs, with 12 in the experimental group and 12 in the control group. The experimental group participated in a 10-session religiously integrated psycho-education-based group counseling program, while no intervention was provided to the control group. The religiously integrated psycho-education-based group counseling program was designed to support individuals' psychological resilience by holistically centering their religious and spiritual aspects, to enhance their stress-coping skills, and to reduce their ruminative thoughts. The program content included religious–spiritual themes supported by verses from the Qur'an and hadiths (gratitude, patience, trust in God, prayer, piety), the ABC model, cognitive restructuring, self-compassion development, mindfulness-based awareness exercises, and the concept of controllability, along with various psychological counseling techniques. These elements were integrated in an eclectic manner, within a holistic structure, in a way that is culturally sensitive and responsive to the needs of individuals. Data were collected using the "Brief Resilience Scale," the "Ruminative Thinking Style Questionnaire," and the "Parenting Stress Scale"; descriptive statistics, non-parametric analyses (Mann–Whitney U test, Wilcoxon signed-rank test), and effect size coefficients were used in the analyses. The findings indicated that the religiously integrated intervention program significantly increased the psychological resilience of mothers in the experimental group, and significantly reduced their ruminative thinking styles and parenting stress levels. Moreover, significant improvements in favor of the experimental group were found in the sub-dimensions of parenting stress, namely parenting rewards, perception of stressors, controllability, and parenting satisfaction. No statistically significant change was observed in the control group. In conclusion, this study reveals that religiously integrated psycho-education-based group counseling is an effective intervention method for strengthening the mental well-being of mothers who have children with special needs.