The Effectiveness of Mindfulness Therapy on Dysfunctional Attitudes of Covid-19

At the end of December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, the corona virus disease spread rapidly throughout China. The beginning of 2020 brought a new challenge to mankind, which was the corona virus or the Covid-19 virus, and it became a global health threat. Corona virus disease is caused by severe acute respiratory disease. The acute syndrome of the corona virus is an epidemic that affects all people and Covid-19 has had a serious impact on thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Research demonstrated that mindfulness-based training can effectively relieve the negative psychological consequences of the outbreak of Covid-19 and help restore well-being, especially for the most vulnerable people. Mindfulness has made people better cope with quarantine conditions and the Covid-19 pandemic. Mindfulness training can direct attention to breathing and keep people away from negative emotions such as anxiety, depression and fear during the corona epidemic. Mindfulness is caused that individual recognize gradually their mind and thinking styles which are come regularly and habitually and also other benefits of mindfulness is to increase their patience, appreciating and awareness of their body.  The purpose of the present research was to investigate the effectiveness if mindfulness therapy on dysfunctional attitudes, of Covid-19.

For the present quasi-experimental study, which was performed with a pre-test-post-test design, among Covid – 19 patients with an age range of 18 to 60 years who were living in Isfahan city in the year 2020. The statistical sample of the current research consisted of 30 people who recovered from corona disease living in Isfahan city in 2020 and among them 30 people who got corona virus were selected through convenience sampling on the purpose based on the entry criteria and were randomly placed in to two experimental and control groups. In each group, there were 15 people, 9 men and 6 women in the experimental group and 5 men and 10 women in the control group. To collect the data Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (Wiseman and Beck, 1987) was used and the Mindfulness Therapy Program Intervention was applied and the treatment protocol used in the present study consisted of eight 120-minute sessions, which have been studied in various studies according to Kabat-Zinn et al.'s (1990) protocol, and the results indicated the effectiveness of mindfulness therapy on ineffective attitudes. Finally, in the current research, in addition to using descriptive indices including frequency, mean and standard deviation, inferential statistics were used to examine hypotheses from univariate covariance analysis using SPSS version 20 software at a significance level of p<0.05 for statistical analysis of data.

The results of ANCOVA analysis showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in ineffective attitudes (P=0.005), in the post-test stage. Therefore, it can be concluded that the mindfulness treatment program has reduced dysfunctional attitudes in the experimental group compared to the control group. The calculated effect size or eta squared value indicates that 26% of the changes in ineffective attitudes scores were due to the effect of the independent variable (implementation of the mindfulness treatment program).

According to the results obtained from the research findings, it can be stated that the hypothesis of the research was confirmed that eight sessions of the treatment of mindfulness has been effective in reducing dysfunctional attitudes of Covid – 19 patients. The current research, like other researches, has limitations, including the method of data collection online and virtual. The limitation of the equal number of demographic information in each group of samples and treatment follow-up can be mentioned as limitations of the research. The age range of 18 to 60 was one of the criteria for entering the research, and the findings of the results cannot be generalized to those under 18 and over 60. In the current research, only the effectiveness of mindfulness has been investigated, so other treatment approaches have not been investigated. Since the present study was conducted using a quasi-experimental study design, it may also be one of the important beginnings for other studies in the future and critical situations. The present study has practical implications for counselors, psychotherapists, educational management and policy makers. In order to confirm or not confirm the long-term effectiveness of the training given in connection with the consequences of Corona, more research should be done by other researchers. It is also suggested that the effectiveness of this treatment approach should be followed up for several months. It is suggested that the effectiveness of mindfulness on other variables such as psychological well-being, quality of life, mental health, spontaneous thoughts, and styles of coping with stress and fear of corona should be done. The results of the research are useful and practical as a non-drug treatment for people in the corona and post-corona period. Therefore, mental health professionals are advised to pay special attention to dysfunctional attitudes and coping strategies and plan to prevent and reduce the complications and risks of dysfunctional attitudes. A variety of face-to-face and online training and treatment programs are recommended by mental health experts to reduce dysfunctional attitudes for healthy people, infected with Corona, and people who have experienced bereavement caused by Corona.  Since there are parts of the country without access to the Internet and mobile phones, and also elderly people may lack the necessary skills to use smartphones, therefore, it is necessary to take appropriate measures along with the observance of health protocols.