Comparing the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy and process model of emotion regulation on self-efficacy of patients with multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the chronic and debilitating neurological disorders in which patients have low sense of security and low self-efficacy due to physical disabilities. The present study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and process model of emotion regulation on the self-efficacy of patients with MS.

The present study was a quasi-experimental type with pretest-posttest design and follow-up. Twenty patients (with medical records in the Tehran MS Association in 2020) were selected by convenience sampling and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The training groups underwent CBT or process model of emotion regulation for three months, but the control group was placed on a waiting list. Self-efficacy was measured by Sherer's Self-Efficacy Scale before, after, and three months after the intervention. At the end, the data were analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance.

The results showed that two methods of CBT and process model of emotion regulation increased the patients' self-efficacy (p<0.01). Tukey post hoc test showed that process model of emotion regulation had a higher mean compared to CBT in both post-test and follow-up stages, which was not significant at 95% confidence level.

It can be concluded that both CBT and process model of emotion regulation are effective in improving the self-efficacy of patients with MS, and both approaches can be used to reduce the psychological problems in such patients.