Effectiveness of Child-Oriented Mindfulness Therapy on Pain Self-Efficacy and Pain Anxiety of the Children with Rheumatism

Physiologic and chronic diseases damage the children’s psychological, communicative, social and emotional processes. Therefore, the present study was conducted aiming to investigate the effectiveness of child-oriented mindfulness on pain self-efficacy and pain anxiety of the children with rheumatism.

It was a quasi-experimental study with pretest, posttest, control group and two-month follow-up period. The statistical society included the children with rheumatism in the city of Isfahan in the autumn of 2018. 30 children with rheumatism were selected through non-random convenient sampling and randomly replaced into experimental and control groups. Then the experimental group received ten sixty-minute sessions of child-oriented mindfulness interventions during three months. The applied questionnaires included pain anxiety signs (Mc Cracken, et.al, 1992) and pain self-efficacy scale (Nicholas, 1989). The data from the study were analyzed through repeated measurement ANOVA.

The results of the study showed that mindfulness therapy has significantly influenced pain self-efficacy and pain anxiety of the children with rheumatism (F=83.54, F=311.23, p<0.001). Moreover, the results showed that this therapy was able to significantly maintain its effect in time (p<0.001). The degree of statistical effect of mindfulness therapy on mindfulness on pain self-efficacy and pain anxiety was 74% and 91% respectively in the children with rheumatism.

According to the findings of the present study it can be concluded that mindfulness therapy employing techniques such as thoughts, emotions and mindful behavior can be applied as an efficient therapy to increase pain self-efficacy and decrease pain anxiety of the children with rheumatism.