Background and Objectives: Failure to treat hypertension often leads to fatal complications; thus, there is an urgent need to develop and expand effective psychological interventions in this respect. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on depression and anxiety in patients with hypertension. Methods This was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test, post-test and a control group design. In total, 24 patients with hypertension in Birjand city, Iran, in the second half of 2020 participated in this research. The study subjects were selected from the eligible subjects who volunteered to participate in the study. Besides, they were chosen by convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups (n=12/group). The experimental group participated in eight ACT sessions developed by Hayes et al. (2011); however, the control group remained on the waiting list. Data collection tools were the Beck Depression Inventory -Second Edition (BDI-II) (2000) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI;Beck et al., 1988). The collected data were analyzed in SPSS using repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at the significance level of P=0.05. Results The current study results revealed that ACT was effective in reducing depression (P<0.01) and anxiety (P<0.01) in patients with hypertension; these results remained consistent until the follow-up step (P<0.01). Conclusion The obtained data indicated the effectiveness of ACT in reducing depression and anxiety in patients with hypertension. Thus, this intervention can be used as a complementary therapy to improve psychological problems in patients with hypertension.
Background and Objectives: Diabetes has irreversible effects on the physical and mental functioning of people with diabetes, therefore performing psychological interventions for patients with diabetes seems necessary. Accordingly, the present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of dialectical behavioral therapy on stress and cognitive flexibility of women with type 2 diabetes. Methods: The present study was a quasi-experimental one with pre-test and post-test design and with a control group. Among the statistical population, which included all women with diabetes referred to the Diabetes Center of Birjand in the second 6 months of 2018, 30 people were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The dialectical behavior therapy program was performed for the experimental group in eight 60-minute sessions weekly. Data were collected by Stress Questionnaire (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) and Cognitive Flexibility Questionnaire (Dennis & Wendrew, 2010) before and after the intervention, and were analyzed using univariate and multivariate analysis of covariance in the environment of SPSS v. 24 at a significance level of 0.05. Results: The results showed that in the post-test stage there was a significant difference between mean scores of stress and cognitive flexibility in experimental and control groups; in other words, dialectical behavior therapy significantly increased cognitive flexibility and reduced stress in patients with type 2 diabetes (P<0.01). Conclusion: Based on the obtained results, in the therapeutic interventions of diabetic patients using effective treatment methods such as dialectical behavior therapy, it is necessary to pay more attention to the improvement of their psychological conditions.
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