Effect of Peer Education on the Resilience of Mothers of Children with Leukemia: A Clinical Trial

Background: Resilience has become a basic construct in theories and studies of welfare and mental health. The mother is the one most involved emotionally in the child's cancer and its treatment and hence, she requires the most degree of resilience. Therefore, it is crucial to deploy effective methods to enhance the resilience of mothers. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of peer education on the resilience of mothers of children with leukemia. Methods: This clinical trial was performed on 74 mothers of children with leukemia who had been hospitalized in the hematology ward of Ali ibn Abi Talib Hospital in Zahedan in 2017. Convenience sampling was used to recruit the participants in accordance with the inclusion criteria. The subjects were randomly assigned to the control and experimental groups. Peer group training was then conducted for the experimental group for five days. The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) was completed for both groups before and immediately after the intervention, as well as two months later. The data were then analyzed using the chi-square test (Fisher's exact test), independent t-test, repeated measures ANOVA, and Bonferroni post hoc test at the significance level of P < 0.05. Results: The results showed that the mean total score of resilience and its subscales did not make a significant difference between the control and experimental groups immediately after the intervention (P > 0.05). Meanwhile, two months post-intervention, a significant difference was observed in this regard between the control and experimental groups, with the latter featuring a higher mean score (P < 0.001). Besides, the results suggested a significant increase in the total score of resilience and all its subscales over time in the experimental group (P < 0.001). Conclusions: Peer education could be implemented as an inexpensive easy method to improve the resilience of mothers of children with leukemia.