The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Marital Satisfaction, Sexual Self-Esteem and Burnout Martial among Women with Type 2 Diabetes

Marital and sexual problems of chronic patients, especially diabetes, that often are ignored, need special attention to proper treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on marital satisfaction, sexual self-esteem and burnout martial among women with type 2 diabetes. This study was a quasi-experimental research design with pretest-posttest and control group. The statistical population included women with type 2 diabetes in the city of Tehran. 30 patients were chosen as samples and randomly were divided into two groups of individuals as control and experimental. The experimental groups practiced the acceptance and commitment therapy 8 sessions and 60 minutes in each session. Then, post-test was performed for them. For data collecting, the marital satisfaction scale of Enrich (1993), sexual self-esteem scale of Doyle, Zeanah and Schwarz (1996) and burnout martial questionnaire of Pines (1993) were used. Data analysis was done by using multivariate analysis of multi covariance. This study with research ethics code IR.KHU.REC.1397.5 has been approved by research ethics committee at Kharazmi university of Tehran, Iran. Results illustrated that after acceptance and commitment therapy, amounts of marital satisfaction and sexual self-esteem were significantly increased in experimental than control group (p<0.05). Also, acceptance and commitment therapy decreased burnout martial among women with type 2 diabetes significantly (p<0.05). Acceptance and commitment therapy can be used as an effective psychological intervention on marital satisfaction, sexual self-esteem and burnout martial among women with type 2 diabetes.