Volume 6 • Issue 1 • 1000155 J Psychol Abnorm, an open access journal ISSN: 2471-9900 J o u r n a l o f P s y c h o l o g i c a l A b n o r m a l i t i e s ISSN: 2471-9900 Bray et al., J Psychol Abnorm 2017, 6:1 DOI: 10.4172/2471-9900.1000155 Research Article OMICS International Journal of Psychological Abnormalities Relaxation and Guided Imagery for Parents of Offspring with Developmental Disabilities Melissa Bray*, Melissa Root, Nicholas Gelbar, Mary Beth Bruder and Victoria Menzies Director, School of Psychology, University of Connecticut, USA Abstract This pilot study employed a randomized control trial that tested a relaxation and guided imagery (RGI) intervention on self-perceptions of state and trait anxiety, depression, sleep quality, and stress. Parents of offspring with developmental disabilities have been shown to have higher levels of stress than parents of typically developing offspring. This study was designed to meet the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) conceptual framework, which encourages early studies to demonstrate a measurable effect of an intervention prior to designing a large- scale study. It is thus intentionally small in scale. Participants were recruited through social media advertisements posted through health and disability-related organizations. Forty-two people responded to recruitment materials, 20 participants began the study and 14 completed the study. Results showed decreased scores on levels of state and trait anxiety (State Trait Anxiety Inventory), depression (Beck’s Depression Inventory) and stress (Perceived Stress Scale-10) for the treatment group with improvements across both groups in sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index). The sleep quality measurement was confounded by sleep medication use that was not measured in detail in this study. Further, participants rated the RGI intervention positively on a consumer satisfaction scale. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed, such as alterations to dependent variable completion timing. *Corresponding author: Melissa Bray, Director, School of Psychology, University of Connecticut, USA, Tel: +1-860-486-0167; E-mail: mbray@uconn.edu Received January 11, 2017; Accepted April 22, 2017; Published April 29, 2017 Citation: Bray M, Root M, Gelbar N, Bruder MB, Menzies V (2017) Relaxation and Guided Imagery for Parents of Offspring with Developmental Disabilities. J Psychol Abnorm 6: 155. doi: 10.4172/2471-9900.1000155 Copyright: © 2016 Bray M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Keywords: Relaxation; Guided imagery; Developmental disabilities; Parents; Stress; Anxiety; Depression; Sleep quality Introduction Te purpose of this research was to examine the efectiveness of a previously studied Relaxation and Guided Imagery intervention [1] on state and trait anxiety, depression, sleep quality and stress in parents of ofspring with developmental disabilities (DD). Te current prevalence rate of developmental disabilities is 1 in 6 [2]. Te RGI intervention has been efective at decreasing stress, fatigue, pain and depression for varied types of participants and conditions, including those with fbromyalgia and asthma [1]. RGI’s efects have been further supported, not only by subjective indices, but also biological markers in that decreases in salivary cortisol levels have been observed [3]. Life stressors can lead to production of stress hormones in the body and subsequent poor health. A stressor such as the number of work days compared to vacation days is associated with an increase in the production of the stress hormone cortisol in humans [4]. Stress has also been associated with fatal diseases such as cancer [5]. Within ovarian cancer, “A one standard deviation increase in night cortisol was associated with a 46% greater likelihood of death” [6]. Tere are therefore, serious health ramifcations to living a stressful lifestyle. Internationally, parents of children with DD, particularly Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), experience high levels of stress [7,8]. Tis is true for both mothers and fathers, with fathers’ stress also being correlated with the severity of ASD symptomology [8]. Parent stress is also related to poor sleep quality for parents of children with DD [9]. Hayes and Watson conducted a meta-analysis of studies that investigated parenting stress for those who have typically developing ofspring, ofspring with ASD, and ofspring with other disabilities. Tey found substantially greater stress in parents of children with ASD compared to typically developing counterparts and to those with other disabilities. Te authors stated that this, “suggests that parenting stress in families with a child diagnosed with ASD is a signifcant experience that warrants attention and intervention. Finding ways to moderate or mediate parenting stress may facilitate a family’s functioning” [10]. Interventions studied for improving mental health variables for parents of children with DD include Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), problem solving education, and cognitive behavior therapy. MBSR is associated with signifcant reductions in perceived stress, parental stress and well-being [11] and problem solving education is associated with reductions in parental stress and mean maternal depressive symptoms [12]. However, MBSR requires expensive and extensive training for the trainer and can also be time intensive for the participant (i.e., eight 2 h sessions at a remote location) [11]. Problem solving education, while less time and expense intensive than MBSR, requires 6 individual 30 min sessions with trained research staf [12]. It is therefore not an intervention that can be completed without professional training and numerous individual time commitments. Group-delivered cognitive behavior therapy has also been used with moderate success to reduce stress for parents of children with developmental disabilities [13], but this also requires remote location meetings and thus presents scheduling difculties. Given the vast respite care needs of parents of children with DD [14], it is not always feasible to plan stress-reduction interventions that further impose extra time and scheduling demands on these already stressed parents. Abelson investigated the respite care needs of parents of children with DD and found, “a void in the availability and accessibility of respite services regardless of demography, income level, or extent of disability”. Terefore, since these parents have limited time resources and the knowledge that parental stress is malleable by intervention and damaging to health, it is important to investigate the efects of an intervention for parents of children with DD that is known to reduce stress while being cost efective and time efcient to implement. Te purpose of this study was to investigate whether a cost-efective and time efcient delivery of an RGI intervention would positively impact perceptions of anxiety, depression, sleep quality and stress for parents of children with developmental disabilities.