EFFECTS OF EXERCISE ACTIVITIES APPLIED TO MOTHERS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS INDIVIDUALS ON ANXIETY AND HOPELESSNESS LEVELS

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the anxiety and hopelessness levels of mothers with individuals with special needs who participated in a physical exercise program that lasted for 6 weeks and was applied twice a week (experimental) and did not participate (control group). This study was designed as a quasi-experimental study. A pre-test-post-test control group research model was applied in the research. The population of the study consists of mothers of students (N=100) who receive education in the Special Needs Education Center (ÖZGEM) affiliated to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Social Services Department. Planned exercise activities were applied to the experimental group twice a week for 6 weeks, while the control group continued its routine life without being subject to any application. In order to determine the anxiety and hopelessness levels of the participants, the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory and Beck Hopelessness scales were applied to both groups as pre-tests and post-tests. The analysis of the collected data was done with the IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 program. In order to compare the experimental and control groups in terms of scale variables, the Kolmogorov Smirnov normal distribution test was first performed. Mann Whitney U test was used to compare the anxiety and hopelessness means between the groups, and Wilcoxon tests were used to compare the pre- and post-test means within the groups. In all analyses, p<0.05 (two-sided) values ​​were considered statistically significant. As a result; it was determined that the state and trait anxiety and hopelessness pre-test levels of mothers with individuals with special needs in the experimental and control groups were similar, while their post-test levels were different. It was determined that the effect of exercise activities applied 4 days a week for 6 weeks on state and trait anxiety and hopelessness levels was significant and that the exercise applied reduced anxiety and hopelessness. It was understood that exercise was a decisive and important factor in reducing different psychological factors that negatively affected the daily lives of the mothers in the research group and in increasing the life satisfaction of these individuals.