The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Pain Self-efficacy and Fear of Migraine Progression among Female Nurses in Tabriz in 2019

Low self-efficacy in the management of pain and fear of migraine progression are among the issues that require psychological interventions for people with migraine headaches. Accordingly, the present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy on pain self-efficacy and fear of migraine progression in female nurses working in Tabriz in 2019.

This study employed a quasi-experimental design. The research population included all nurses suffering from migraine in Tabriz in 2019. A total number of 30 nurses who were diagnosed with migraine based on ICHD-3 criteria and received mean scores one standard deviation above on the migraine headache symptom questionnaire were selected using purposeful sampling and were randomly placed into the experimental and control groups (each with 15 participants). The participants in the two groups completed the Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (Nicholas, 2007) and Fear of Progression Questionnaire (Herschbach et al. 2009) as the pre-test and post-test. The group cognitive-behavioral therapy was performed in 8 sessions each lasting one hour (4 weeks in total) for the participants in the experimental group and the control group did not receive any intervention. The collected data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate and analysis of covariance (ANCONA) in SPSS software (Version 23).  

There was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of their mean scores on the post-test (p=0.001), indicating that the intervention significantly increased the scores of the pain self-efficacy and decreased fear of disease progression in the experimental group.

Considering the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy on increasing the pain self-efficacy and reducing the fear of disease progression in nurses with migraines, is recommended the use of this therapy technique.