Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Training on Emotional Control of Chemical Veterans

Aims: Considering the importance of mental health in veteran's lives, a treatment-based approach to admission and commitment can be helpful in creating the psychological flexibility of veterans. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) training on emotional control of chemical veterans.
This quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design with control group was performed among 50 chemical veterans in Arak city in 2017. They were selected by convenient sampling and then randomly assigned into two groups: experimental group (25 people) and control group (25 people). Emotional Control Questionnaire (ECQ) was used to collect data. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) training was performed in 10 sessions for the experimental group. Data were analyzed by SPSS 23 software using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA).
There was a significant difference between the mean scores of emotional control in the experimental and control groups in the post-test. By controlling the effects of pre-test, ACT training significantly increased emotional inhibition (F=2.16), control of aggression (F=6.02) and rumination (F=4.41) in the experimental group (p0.05).
ACT training is effective on improving emotional control in chemical veterans; in this way that improves emotional inhibition, control of aggression and rumination, but does not affect the benign control.