Effectiveness of mindfulness group therapy based on stress reduction on drug cravings and emotional regulation difficulties of substance dependent women referring to Ihyagaran Addiction Center on Salamat Road, Abbas Abad city

The present study was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of mindfulness group therapy based on stress reduction on cravings and emotional regulation difficulties in substance-dependent women. The research was semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with two experimental and control groups. The statistical population included all drug-dependent women aged 18 to 50 who referred to Ihyagaran Rah Salamat Addiction Center. 32 people were selected by available and voluntary sampling and were randomly divided into two equal groups of 16 people and they responded to the research tools including the craving questionnaire (Franken et al., 2002) and the difficulty in emotion regulation questionnaire (Gratz and Romer, 2004). For the subjects of the experimental group, mindfulness training based on stress reduction was implemented in 10 sessions. Data analysis was done with descriptive statistics and covariance analysis with SPSS-23 statistical software. The results of the covariance analysis showed that participating in the mindfulness training program based on stress reduction in the post-exam stage reduced the craving score and its components and reduced the difficulty in regulating emotion and its components in the experimental group. However, there was no noticeable change in the scores of the above-mentioned variables of the subjects of the control group from the pre-test to the post-test.