The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Psychological Well-Being and Positive and Negative Emotions in Adolescent Girls with Body Dysmorphic Syndrome

Psychological well-being and emotions are among the functions that are affected by body deformity disorder. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on psychological well-being and positive and negative emotions in adolescent girls with deformity syndrome.

The research method was quasi-experimental through pre-test and post-test design, with a control group. The statistical population of this study included adolescent female students with perceived body deformity disorder who were referred to the clinic under the supervision of Tehran’s District 5 during the first six months of 2020. Among these subjects, 50 individuals were selected by purposeful sampling method and randomly allocated into the experimental and control groups. The research’s instruments included the demographic items,  revised  Ryff  Psychological Well-Being Scale, and Positive Affects and Negative Affects Scales. The content validity of the instruments was measured by qualitative method and their reliability was approved by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. After performing 6 training sessions for the experimental group, the research data were analyzed using analysis of covariance in SPSS software (ver.24).

The results showed a significant difference between the mean scores of post-test (F(1,48)=22.49; P≤0.001) in the psychological well-being variable. There was a significant difference between the mean scores of post-test in the positive emotion variable (F(1,48)=13.89; P≤0.001) and the negative emotion variable (F(1,48)=30.45; P≤0.001).

The results showed that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is effective on psychological well-being and positive and negative emotions in adolescent girls with perceived body deformity syndrome. Therefore, it is suggested that in addition to medical treatments, behavioral interventions such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy be provided for adolescents with deformity syndrome.