Investigating How the Benson Relaxation Response Reduces Anxiety in Mothers of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background: Having a child with autism causes depression, anxiety, and distress in the parents. Accordingly, this study investigates the effect of Benson relaxation response on the anxiety of mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).  Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design and a control group. The subjects were 100 mothers with autistic children admitted to Shahid Zolfaghari Autism Support Center located in Tehran City, Iran in 2023 who were selected using convenience sampling. They were randomly assigned into two intervention and control groups (each with 50 participants). The participants in groups of 5-6 received the Benson relaxation response in eight steps. The steps were repeated until all groups had acquired the required skill. Then the subjects were asked to repeat this intervention twice a day for 30 days. The post-test was done after 30 days of relaxation sessions at home in both groups. The data were collected using the Beck anxiety inventory and analyzed using descriptive statistics (Mean±SD) and inferential statistics (analysis of covariance and Paired difference t-test) in the SPSS software, version 26. The significance level was set at P 0.05. Results: The findings showed no statistically significant difference between the mean anxiety scores of the mothers in the intervention group (31.26±4.57; n=50) and the control group (32.14±4.8; n=50) before the intervention (P 0.05). However, after the intervention, a statistically significant difference was observed between the mean anxiety scores for the mothers in the intervention group (25.38±6.01) and the control group (33.04±4.41; t=5.73, P=0.001). Also, after controlling the effect of covariates, the participants’ anxiety scores after the intervention showed a statistically significant difference (F=52.76, P=0.001).  Conclusion: The Benson relaxation response was effective in reducing the anxiety of mothers of children with ASD. Thus, psychiatric nurses and mental health professionals can use Benson relaxation response along with other treatments to improve the anxiety of mothers of children with ASD.