Effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Anxiety Induced by Marital Conflict in Women Affected by Domestic Violence

  Violence against women, as a major social problem, has an essential impact on the health, reproduction, as well as sexual and psychological health of women. As a result, the victims of domestic violence are not only more prone to experiencing biopsychosocial consequences, but may also require more emergency and medical care. Therefore, the present study aimed to determine the effect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on anxiety induced by marital conflicts in women with domestic violence experience.

This was an applied research in terms of purpose, and concerning implementation, it was an experimental study with a pretest–posttest and a control group design. The statistical population of this study included all women referred to government hospitals for domestic violence in Babol City, Iran, in 2017. A random sampling method was applied to select the study participants. Three hospitals were randomly selected from all medical centers in Babol; next, 30 women were selected from those who met the study inclusion criteria, including domestic violence victims who visited these three centers. The study samples were randomly assigned into two experimental groups (n=15) and one control group (n=15). Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) (1990) and Marital Conflict Questionnaire (MCQ) (Sanaei Zaker et al., 2008) were used to collect the required data. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS. For analyzing the research hypotheses, Independent Samples t–test, Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Bonferroni post–hoc test were used. In the descriptive statistics section, indicators, such as frequency, mean, and standard deviation were applied. Furthermore, for the inferential statistics analysis, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) were implemented.

The MANCOVA results were used to compare the anxiety scores in the control and treatment groups based on ACT in the posttest phase. The obtained F value was equal to 22.14 and the significance level was set at 0.01 (p<0.001). Therefore, the assumption was equal to zero and the assumption of the research was confirmed, consequently. Accordingly, and considering the lower mean scores of ACT groups in the posttest (44.67), it could be concluded that ACT effectively reduced anxiety in the investigated women involved in domestic violence. The mean (± standard deviation) of the anxiety score of the subjects in the experimental group was in the post–test stage (44.67±12.12) which has decreased significantly compared to the pre–test stage (50.13±13.08); However, in the control group, the mean score of anxiety in the post–test was (46.33±13.05), which did not change significantly with the mean of the pre–test (47.93±13.29).

ACT and Cognitive–Behavioral Therapy (CBT) impact ineffective attitudes, marital distress, and anxiety induced by the marital conflicts of women involved in domestic violence.