ABSTRACT
Today, due to increased infertility in couples and a lack of guardianship of orphan children, much attention has been drawn on adoption. Purpose of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of adoption skills training on stress reduction and improving coping styles of couples who are applicants for having an adopted child. Present study has semi-experimental design. The research community consisted of all couples who are adoptive applicants to have an adopted child and in 2009-2010 referred to the Welfare Organization of Khorasan Razavi. Couples who are eligible for the research criteria were selected by convenience sampling method. They filled in Cattle Anxiety Inventory and Lazarus and Folkman Coping Styles Inventory. 14 couples who had raw score greater than 35 in anxiety test and emotion oriented coping style in Coping Style Inventory were selected and allocated by random assignment method in control or experimental groups. Then eight sessions of adoption skills training were carried out for the experimental group. The control group passed the normal process of administrative stages. The rate of stress and coping styles of both groups were measured after treatment and the following six weeks performed to evaluate the passage of time on the experimental group. Data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance and repeated measurements variance. There was a significant and positive difference in scores of two tests [Cattle Anxiety and Lazarus and Folkman coping styles] between two experimental and control groups [P