The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in Anxiety and Distress Tolerance in Patients with Coronary Heart Diseases

Anxiety and decreased nervousness tolerance are among the main problems of coronary heart disease patients that can make negative physiological and psychological consequences. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy in anxiety and distress tolerance in patients with coronary heart disease.

In a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design with a control group with follow-up period, from the statistical population that included of all patients with coronary artery disease referred to the specialized center of Shahid Lavasani Hospital in Tehran in the summer of 2021, 30 volunteers were selected by purposive sampling and then randomly divided into two experimental and control groups (15 people in each group). The research instruments included Beck et al.'s (1988) Anxiety Inventory and Simmons and Gaher (2005) Anxiety Behavior Questionnaires, which were administered to both groups as pretest, posttest, and follow-up. Alice and Beck cognitive-behavioral therapy was performed in ten 90-minute sessions for the experimental group, but the control group received the usual treatment. Data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance and SPSS software version 16 at a significance level of 0.05.

The results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the post-test in anxiety variables (p <0.001) and anxiety tolerance components (p <0.001). Also, the results were stable in the follow-up period (p <0.001).

According to the results, cognitive-behavioral therapy was effective in reducing anxiety and increasing anxiety tolerance in patients with coronary heart disease. Therefore, it can be used as a complementary treatment along with medical methods to improve the psychological status (reduce anxiety and increase distress tolerance) in patients with coronary heart disease.