Investigating the Effectiveness of Dialectical Behavior Therapy on Resilience, Psychological Flexibility, and Glycemic Control of Diabetic Patients

Diabetes is a widespread chronic disease that, in addition to affecting the individual’s clinical condition, imposes high costs on societies worldwide. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of dialectical behavior therapy on the resilience, psychological flexibility, and glycemic control of diabetic patients.

This research was practical in purpose and semi-experimental in method with a pre-test/post-test design with a control group. The statistical population comprised all people with diabetes who were referred to Sayad Hospital in Gorgan City, Iran, in 2022. From this statistical population, 30 patients were selected via the available sampling method and randomly divided into an experimental (n=15) and a control group (n=15). The experimental group was trained in dialectical behavior therapy, while the control group did not receive any psychological intervention during the implementation of the research. The research tool was the Connor and Davidson resilience questionnaire (2003) and the Dennis psychological flexibility questionnaire (2010). Research data were analyzed by multivariate covariance analysis using the SPSS software, version 24.

The Mean±SD of the post-test total score of resilience, psychological flexibility, and glycemic control in the experimental group were respectively 80.60±20.62, 91.00±25.64, and 198.10±26.52. These numbers were respectively 77.20±22.86, 75.60±22.29, and 204.30±30.18 for the control group. Dialectical behavior therapy had a significant effect on the resilience, flexibility, and glycemic control of diabetic patients (P<0.05).

By performing mindfulness exercises and emotional experience modulation, dialectical behavioral therapy training has led to the promotion of mental health, improvement of resilience skills, and flexibility of diabetic patients. Therefore, this method can be used as a new approach to increase the self-care skills of patients with diabetes in health-related centers.