The impact of acceptance and commitment-based therapy on job stress, metacognitive beliefs, attention and shooting performance among military personnel

Working as police officers and military personnel, firefighting and lifeguarding are a source of stress due to their environmental conditions, kind of organizational mission and duty structure. The objective of the present research work is to analyze the group training effect of the acceptance and commitment-based therapy (ACT) on job stress, metacognitive beliefs, attention and underpressure shooting performance among military personnel in Isfahan, Iran.
This is an empirical study of pretestposttest kind. The sample included 30 subjects selected through the availability sampling method from among military personnel in Isfahan, Iran and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The experiment group took part in eight 90minute sessions of ACT group training, but the control group didn’t receive any intervention. The subjects responded to Osipow’s Job Stress Questionnaire, Wales’ Metacognition Questionnaire and Marishook’s Attention Test before and after the intervention. The obtained data were analyzed using ANCOVA.
The findings revealed that the acceptance and commitment-based therapy training impacts on controlling job stress, metacognitive beliefs, attention and under-pressured shooting performance level among military personnel (p The acceptance and commitment-based therapy training can decrease job stress, improve metacognitive beliefs, enhance attention and shooting performance among military personnel.