Effectiveness of Grouped Spiritual Psychotherapy on Patients with Opium Using Disorder

Some scientists believe that the definition of Bio-psychosocial is not a comprehensive definition for humankind. They are willing to add the spirituality as a part of human being. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a spiritual group therapy among patients with opium using disorders in Tehran. This study was a clinical trial in which 61 opium users were selected using simple sampling from patient referred to the Iranian national center for addiction studies and two other private centers. Patients were divided into two equal intervention and control groups. The intervention group was treated by spiritual group therapy presented at Yale University, modified according to the Iranian/Islamic culture of the participants within eight sessions in eight weeks. Urine morphine test was done for each participant every week. The Beck depression test, Beck anxiety test and quality of life test (the short form Health survey SF36) were completed before, during and after the intervention. The mean scores of the depression test (p>0.002), anxiety test (p>0.001), and the short form health survey SF 36 test (p>0.001) were improved in the intervention group after the intervention. Although urine morphine test showed a negative trend, the decline was not statistically significant (p< 0.75). This package showed to be effective in many dimensions of psycho-somatic, social and spiritual health of opium users. Subsequent interventions with more modified packages may be more influential.