Effectiveness of Compassion-Enriched Acceptance and Commitment Treatment with and Without Sertraline on Depression, Stress, and Anxiety in Methadone-Containing Substance Abuse Patients: A Clinical Trial

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of combination therapy with sertraline and compassion-enriched act on depression, stress, and anxiety in opioid abuse patients treated with methadone compared to intervention based on compass-enriched acceptance and commitment treatment alone.

This study was a clinical trial with a pre-test and post-test design. Forty people were selected by voluntary sampling method; after matching, they were divided into two groups with 15 participants. The first group received compassion-enriched acceptance and commitment treatment and the second group received combination therapy with compassion-enriched acceptance and commitment treatment and sertraline for 28 days. Patients were evaluated based on the Anxiety-Stress-Depression Questionnaire (DASS-21). Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16, multivariate analysis of covariance test at the level of 0.05.

The results showed that both interventional methods effectively treat depression, stress, and anxiety (p<0.01), while the combined treatment of enriched acceptance and commitment treatment with compassion plus sertraline has the most significant effect on the studied parameters (p<0.01).

Acceptance and commitment treatment enriched with compassion plus drug therapy effectively reduces depression, stress, and anxiety in opioid addicts under methadone maintenance treatment and can be used as an effective method in the treatment of addiction.