Effect of Benson’s Relaxation Technique on the Anxiety of Patients With COVID-19

The disease of Covid-19 has many physical and psychological effects. One of the psychological effects of this disease is anxiety, which can reduce the quality of life of patients. The aim of this study was to effect of Benson relaxation on the anxiety of patients with covid-19.

This research was a semi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group, which was conducted on 64 patients with covid-19 admitted to Amiralmomenin Hospital in Arak in 1400. After obtaining written consent, the subjects were selected by convenience sampling and randomly assigned to the divided into two experimental groups (32 people) and control (32 people. After teaching the Benson relaxation technique, the patients in the experimental group performed relaxation exercises for 15 minutes twice a day for 2 consecutive days. In the control group, there was routine treatment without any intervention. The data gathering tool were demographic questionnaire and the Spielberger ‘s state anxiety questionnaire. The questionnaires were completed before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed by SPSS 21 with using the descriptive and analytic statistics (chi square test, t-test and independent t) was performed.

The results showed that before the intervention, there was no statistically significant difference between the average anxiety scores of the patients in the two experimental groups (55.21 ± 8.85) and control (54.75 ± 6.62) (P>0.05), but between the average the scores of the experimental group (40.43 ± 9.97) and the control group (52.03 ± 6.35) after the implementation of Benson's relaxation showed a significant difference (P<0.001).

Benson relaxation technique has an effect on the anxiety of corona patients, the use of this method is recommended as a complementary method in reducing the anxiety of these patients.