The effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on perceived stress, resilience, and the quality of life in thalassemia major patients

The present study aimed to determine the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on perceived stress, resilience, and the quality of life in thalassemia major patients in Lordegan during 2015-2016. This semi-experimental study used the pre-test and post-test designs with a control group and period. The samples included 40 patients with thalassemia major who referred to Lordegan Shohada hospital, were selected by the purposeful sampling technique based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group received eight-week sessions of the acceptance and commitment-based therapy, while the control group received no intervention until the end of the study. The data were collected by the perceived stress questionnaire (Cohen et al), Researcher Conner and Davison Resilience Scale, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life (SF-26). Finally, the obtained data were analyzed using the SPSS software, repeated measure, and covariance tests The results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of the perceived stress, resilience, and the quality of life (P<0.001). In addition, based on the results, 66% of the changes in the perceived stress scores, 81% of the difference in the resiliency scores, and 75% of the difference in the quality of life scores were related to the impact of therapy based on the acceptance and group commitment. Further, the results of the analysis variance of the internal group revealed that the effect of therapy based on the acceptance and commitment on the perceived stress, resilience, and the quality of life had a significant difference in pretest, posttest, and follow-up stages. In general, the therapy based on the acceptance and commitment is found to be a useful practice in reducing the perceived stress while increasing the resilience and improving the quality of life in patients with thalassemia major.