Comparison of Effectiveness of Quality of Life Therapy and Treatment Based on Islamic Spirituality on Distress Tolerance, Stress, Anxiety, and Depression in Women with Tension Headaches

Tension headache is one of the psychosomatic disorders and it is very common in throughout the world. Stress and bad moods are among the aggravating factors of tension headaches. The purpose of the study is to compare effectiveness of quality of life therapy and treatment based on Islamic spiritualty on distress tolerance, stress, anxiety, and depression in women with tension headaches.
This is an experimental study with pre-test, post-test, follow-up and control group. The study population included all the female patients with tension headaches in Kermanshah city in 2014. 39 subjects were selected by random sampling method and inclusion-exclusion criteria, and randomly were divided into two experimental groups and one control group (n=13). The experimental group of quality of life therapy was under treatment within 8 sessions of 90-minute and the experimental group of spiritual therapy was also treated within 8 sessions of 100-minute while the control group received no treatment. The research tools included Distress Tolerance Scale, and Depression Anxiety Stress Scales which were conducted in pre-test, post-test, and follow-up.
Data analysis by using multivariate covariance method and post hoc tests showed that both treatments; the quality of life therapy and treatment based on Islamic spirituality had significant effects on improving distress, stress, anxiety, and depression tolerance in post-test and follow-up. But the efficiency of spiritual treatment in reducing anxiety and depression in post-test was more significant compared to quality of life therapy. Hence, there was no significant difference between the two groups in the post-test regarding improvement of distress and depression tolerance. In the follow-up stage, the effect of spiritual therapy was more than quality of life therapy in all variables.
According to the findings both treatments, the quality of life therapy and treatment based on Islamic spirituality are effective interventions for patients with tension headaches. But the long-term impacts of treatment based on Islamic spirituality are more significant.