The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Meta-Worry and Cognitive Flexibility in Psychosomatic Patients with Migraine
Keywords:
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Meta-Worry, Cognitive Flexibility, Psychosomatic Patients, MigraineAbstract
Objective: Psychosomatic patients face many problems in life, especially in the field of meta-worry and cognitive flexibility. Therefore, the present research was conducted with the aim of determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on meta-worry and cognitive flexibility in psychosomatic patients with migraine.
Methods and Materials: The present research was applied in terms of purpose and semi-experimental with a pretest and posttest design with a control group. The research population was psychosomatic patients with migraine who referred to psychiatric clinics of Ahvaz city in 2024 year. After reviewing the inclusion criteria, number of 40 people were selected as a sample by purposive sampling method and randomly replaced into two equal groups. The experimental group underwent 10 sessions of 60 minute by acceptance and commitment therapy and the control group remained on the waiting list for therapy. The present research tools were included of meta-worry questionnaire (Wells & Davies, 1994) and cognitive flexibility questionnaire (Dennis & VanderWal, 2010). The data in this study were analyzed with using chi-square and multivariate analysis of covariance methods in SPSS-25 software at a significant level of 0.05.
Findings: The findings showed that there was no significant difference in gender, education and age between psychosomatic patients with migraine in the experimental and control groups (P>0.05). Also, acceptance and commitment therapy reduced meta-worry and increased cognitive flexibility in psychosomatic patients with migraine (P<0.001).
Conclusion: According to the results of this study, health professionals and therapists can use acceptance and commitment therapy method beside other treatment methods to improve psychological characteristics, especially reducing meta-worry and increasing cognitive flexibility.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Hossein Namazi Foroushani, Mahsa Jorjorzade Shoushtari (Author)
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