Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based cognitive Therapy on Cognitive-Emotional Regulation and Cognitive Flexibility of Gastrointestinal Patients

Gastrointestinal disorders, as one of the most common physical complaints, are examples of the relationship between mental and physical health. It is estimated that about 7 to 12 percent of all visits to physicians are related to gastrointestinal symptoms and disorders. Therefore, the present study seeked to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on cognitive- emotional regulation and cognitive flexibility in gastro-intestinal patients. The research method was quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest design with unbalanced control group and its sample consisted of 30 subjects (15 persons for the experimental group and 15 persons for the control group) who were selected via available sampling method. Then, the members of the experimental group underwent mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for 8 sessions while the control group did not receive any treat-ment. The tests included the Cognitive-Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) and Cognitive Flexibility Questionnaire (CFQ). The results of covariance analysis showed that the difference between the exerimental and control groups in cognitive-emotional regu-lation were statistically significant (P<0/05). The difference between experimental and control groups in cognitive flexibility was statistically significant (P<0/05). In general, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy had a significant effect on the overall scores of cognitive-emotional regulation and cognitive flexibility of these patients