Objective Disability is a form of damage that limits one or more major life activities of an individual. It is also associated with psychological distress and depression in these individuals, which in turn also cause problems for the concerned families. Consequently, families with disabled children are socially isolated and experience a low-level of mental health and mood. As mothers of disabled children spend more time with them, their adjustment and physical and mental health are more threatened. They are more sensitive to emotional issues and family relationships outside the family. Thus, the present study was conducted to predict the perceived empathy based on emotional schemas and resilience in mothers with disabled children.
Materials & Methods This study is a descriptive one, and the statistical population consisted of all mothers with motor-physically disabled children. This study was conducted in 2015-2016 academic year in the city of Tehran. Through purposeful sampling method, 120 samples were selected. Thus among the multiple areas in Tehran, areas 2, 4 and 16 were selected and by referring to special schools with physical-motor disabilities, questionnaires were given to the students. To collect information, Jefferson Scale of Patient's Perceptions of Physician Empathy Questionnaire (jspppe) was used to assess communication skills, human relations, quality, and expertise and medical skills. Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale was designed to measure the strength to cope with stress, and Emotional Schema Scale Lee Hee (LESS) that is used to determine beliefs and attitudes toward emotion in individuals were developed in 2002 by Lee Hee. Based on emotional schema, these two scales were used to measure 14 schema dimensions.
Results Based on the analysis of results and with respect to the establishment of conditions for equality of variances with Levene's test (P≥0.05) and normal distribution of data with Shapiro test (P≥0.05), parametric tests were used. Given that research has predicted the relationship, the Pearson correlation test and multiple regressions by Enter method  were used by using SPSS 23. The results of Pearson correlation showed that domains of emotional validation, superior values, stability, and consensus showed a significant positive correlation with perceived empathy of mothers having children with physical-motor disabilities (P<0.001). It was also found that resiliency has a positive and significant relationship with perceived empathy in mothers with children having physical-motor disabilities (P<0.02). Multiple regression analysis showed the shared variance emotional schemas and resiliency with perceived empathy is 0.46. The main findings of regression analysis, via the enter method, showed that the emotional schema validation, having superior values and resiliency factors have a significant effect in the prediction of perceived empathy of mothers of children with disabilities. Other emotional schemas are not significant impact factors in the prediction of perceived sympathy of mothers with disabled children.
Conclusion According to the results, the high resiliency and a positive emotional schemas such as having superior values and validation are predictors of perceived empathy in the mothers of disabled children. This means that the mothers of children with disabilities in dealing with situations when they have more resiliency and and interpret them as positive, are able to communicate more effectively with their surroundings.In this regard, one of the factors is perceived empathy that has a significant impact on the development of personal relationships between individuals and reflects the person's mental health. In addition, it can be used with resiliency and emotional schemas, so therapeutic intervention is implimented with respect to these two variables.