The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Group Therapy on Depression and Body Image in Women with Obesity

From the perspective of psychology, obesity can lead to the negative attitude, stress and the increasing the risks of psychological disorders. From the viewpoint of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), psychological disorders are due to the fusion of psychological and cognitive inflexibility. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of an acceptance and commitment group therapy on improving the depression and body image among female with obesity. This quasi-experimental study was performed through pre-posttest with the intervention and the control groups. The target population of this research was total obese women depression symptoms and negative body image who referred to nutrition and sports clubs in East of Tehran in 2014. 30 obese women with depression symptoms and negative body image were selected through purposeful sampling and randomly divided in the intervention and the control groups. The intervention group participated in acceptance and commitment group therapy sessions include once a week for two months (a total of 8 sessions).The control group received no intervention. All participants were evaluated in the first and last meeting by the Beck Depression Inventory and body image questionnaires. To analyze the data descriptive parameters such as frequency and standard deviation and statistical tests such as t-test for comparison two independent groups were used. The results showed a significant reduction in depression scores (P<0.01) and a significant increase in body image scores (P=0.001) in patients of the intervention group compared to the control group. The study showed that acceptance and commitment group therapy in women with obesity lead to the reduction in depression and increase the desirable perception of body image, therefore, the use of this therapeutic approach is recommended in women with obesity.