Developing an effective support group programme is necessary to help the mothers of haemophilic children to encourage their children to live healthily and independently through early management, as well as to reduce the mothers' depression and stress. Although the need is high, there is no self-help group programme for mothers in Korea yet.The purpose of this study was to develop, implement and evaluate a new self-help group programme for mothers of children with haemophilia. Pre-experimental design was used to evaluate the effect of a pilot group. Participants were 12 mothers of haemophilic children below 15 years old. Knowledge on haemophilia, self-efficacy, depression, rearing stress and quality of life were evaluated using questionnaires. A Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare pre- and post-test.Knowledge, self-efficacy and quality of life were significantly increased, while depression was statistically reduced after the programme. The rearing stress was also reduced, but the result was not statistically significant.The self-help programme for mothers of haemophilic children increased the mothers' knowledge of haemophilia, self-efficacy and quality of life, while decreasing their depression symptoms. It seems that the programme was effective, but additional experimental study is necessary to verify the effects of the programme.

Mothers of hemophilic children are under stressful situations because of the characteristics of disease and inheritance. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of the self-help group program for the mothers of hemophilic children. Fifty one mothers of hemophilic children were participated. The experiment group (n = 24) participated in the self-help group program for 5 weeks, while the control group (n = 27) received a self-help booklet only. Knowledge, self-efficacy, depression, parenting stress, and quality of life were evaluated using questionnaires. Data were analyzed using χ(2) -test, t-test, and analysis of covariance (ancova). The experiment and control groups were homogeneous in general characteristics and depending variables except knowledge (P < 0.05; P > 0.05, respectively). Knowledge, self-efficacy, and quality of life in the experiment group were increased after the program (P < 0.001). Especially, the knowledge in the experiment group was lower than the control group in pretest, but higher in the posttest (P < 0.001). Depression and parenting stress were reduced in the experiment group compared to the control group (P < 0.001). It is suggestive that the self-help group program can be a useful opportunity for mothers of hemophilic children to improve knowledge and self-efficay of child care and quality of life of themselves; to decrease depression and parenting stress. Extended application of the program to fathers or all family members may be needed to investigate in the future.