Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of emotion regulation training on the ‎marital conflicts of parents with autistic children. The research population included ‎all parents with autistic children studying at Tehran schools who were selected by a ‎cluster randomized sampling from these schools. The subjects were randomly ‎divided into two groups of control (15 couples) and experimental (15 couples) in a ‎pretest and post-test design with a control group. In the pre-test stage, all subjects ‎were assessed by Sanaei marital conflicts questionnaire. Then, the experimental ‎group received 8 sessions of emotion regulation training based on Gross model. ‎During this period, the control group did not receive any training. After the ‎completion of the training sessions of the experimental group, both groups were re-‎assessed by the research tool in the post-test stage. Finally, all data were analyzed ‎by SPSS 19 software and multivariate covariance analysis (MANCOVA). The ‎results revealed a significant difference between the two groups in terms of ‎reduction in the scores of reduced cooperation, reduced sex, increased emotional ‎response, increased support for children, increased individual relationship with ‎relatives, reduced family relationship with spouse relatives and friends, and ‎separation of financial affairs (F = 4.042, P <0.05). Additionally, the results showed ‎that emotion regulation training significantly reduced the marital conflicts of the ‎parents in the experimental group compared to the control group. Therefore, it can ‎be concluded that teaching emotion regulation strategies can be very useful in ‎resolving marital conflicts‎‎.