Participants
The study was conducted in two separate private education and rehabilitation centres in eastern Turkey between Janu-ary and June 2009. Trial participants were the mothers of 144 intellectually disabled children with IQs ranging from 25 to 50 who were registered at two separate private education and rehabilitation centres. The sample group consisted of 75 mothers (40 intervention, 35 control) who had volunteered to take part in the trial. Most, but not all, mothers attended these centres with their children and werealso able to communicate (with an ability to understand questions and without speech problems). At the beginning, 90 mothers (625% participation) participated in the trial,with each randomly assigned either to the intervention (n = 45) or to control (n = 45) group. However, the study was completed with 75 mothers because five mothers from the intervention group did not complete the education program, six mothers from the control group discontinued, and four mothers from the control group did not want to complete their post-tests.