The effectiveness of mindfulness-integrated cognitive behavior therapy on depression, anxiety, and stress in females with multiple sclerosis : a single blind randomized controlled trial

Abstract EN

Background: Previous studies have shown the effectiveness of cognitive behavior therapy in improvement of psychological symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and stress.

Recent studies suggest that mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) are effective in reducing these psychological symptoms in chronic diseases.

The present study was the first study to examine the effects of mindfulness-integrated cognitive behavior therapy (MiCBT) on common comorbid psychological symptoms in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Objectives: The present study aimed at examining the effect of mindfulness-integrated cognitive behavior therapy on depression, anxiety, and stress in females with multiple sclerosis.

Methods: This research was a quasi-experimental study conducted on female patients with MS who referred to Fars MS Society, Shiraz, Iran, in 2015.

A total of 56 patients with MS were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly assigned into intervention and control groups.

The intervention group received eight 2-hour sessions of MiCBT, while the control group was only given the usual treatment (TAU).

The patients in both groups filled out a demographic questionnaire along with depression, anxiety and stress scales (DASS-21) in pre- and posttest.

Results: In the current study, no statistically significant differences were found between the study groups in demographic variables (P > 0.05).

Analysis of covariance revealed significant differences between the study groups in all the 3 variables in posttest compared to the pretest.

The mean scores of depression, anxiety, and stress in the MiCBT group were significantly lower than the control group (P < 0.001).

The mean score of depression was 16.697.1 in the experimental group before the intervention, which decreased to 6.175.7 after the intervention (P < 0.001).

In addition, the mean score of anxiety was 13.27.25 in pre-intervention, which significantly reduced to 6.095.2 in post-intervention (P < 0.001).

The mean score of stress also decreased from 22.096.07 to 10.876.3 compared to the pretest (P < 0.001).

Conclusions: The results of the present study suggested that mindfulness-integrated cognitive behavior therapy is an effective and affordable treatment in reducing depression, anxiety, and stress for patients with MS.