The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on Perceived Stress, Negative Mood, Self-Efficacy and Pain Perception in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction on perceived stress, negative mood, self-efficacy, and pain perception in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. This was a quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test with control group. The statistical population of this study included all patients with rheumatoid arthritis referred to Tehran Shariati hospital. A sample of 40 patients (20 females and 20 males) was selected with targeted sampling from this population and were randomly assigned into experimental (10 male and 10 female) and control (10 male and 10 female) groups. In this intervention, the experimental group underwent mindfulness-based stress reduction program during 8 sessions for 2 months, 2 hours per week, and the control group was placed on the waiting list. The experimental and control groups also completed the Perceived Stress Scale by Cohen et al (1983), the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale by Lovibond & Lov bond (1995), the Self-efficacy Scale by Sherer et al (1982), and the McGill pain questionnaire by Melzack (1975) at pre-test and post-test. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data. The results showed that in the post-test phase, mindfulness-based stress reduction treatment significantly (p<0/001) increased self-efficacy and significantly (p<0/001) reduced perceived stress, negative mood, and pain perception in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Mindfulness-based stress reduction can be effective in increasing self-efficacy and decreasing perceived stress, negative mood, and pain perception in these patients.