Effects of Metacognitive Training and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Couple Communication Patterns With the Mediation of Perceived Stress, Perceived Social Support, and Emotion Regulation in Patients With Coronary Heart Disease

Psychosocial risk factors have been associated with coronary heart disease (CHD). Social support within couples’ relationships has been shown to be important to health outcomes and adjustment to psychological and physical conditions in patients with CHD. Constructive interactions with the family—especially within couples— can reduce the level of perceived stress, increase perceived social support, and affect experienced emotions.
This research had a pretest-posttest experimental design with 2 experimental groups and 1 control group. A sample of 45 subjects was chosen through random sampling among CHD patients at Rajaie Cardiovascular, Medical, and Research Center. The study population was then divided into 2 experimental groups and 1 control group. The measurement tools of the study were Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John), and Communication Pattern Questionnaire. The data were analyzed through multivariate analysis of covariance and stepwise regression analysis.
The findings of the study indicated that metacognitive therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy had an effect on the reduction of perceived stress, increase of perceived social support, and improvement of emotion regulation and couple communication patterns among the CHD patients.
The results of the present study can help achieve the objective of reducing stress, augmenting social support, enhancing emotion regulation and couple communication patterns, and—in general—improving mental condition. (Iranian Heart Journal 2018; 19(1):6-14)