Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Thought Control Strategy and Quality of Life in Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Aims: Quality of life is an ideal goal of health care, and a treatment is effective when it increases the quality of life. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on thought control strategy and quality of life in veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
In this experimental study with pre-test post-test and follow-up design with control group in 2016 to 2017, 28 veterans with PTSD from the Martyr Foundation and Veterans Affairs in Sari were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly divided into two experimental and control groups (Each group included 14 individuals). The research tools were quality of life (SF-36) and Thought Control Questionnaires (TCQ). The experimental group received ACT during 8 sessions (Each sessions took 120minutes) each week. The control group did not receive any treatment. After the sessions were completed, a post-test was carried out and follow-up was made after 3 months. The data were analyzed by SPSS 20 software, using multivariate covariance analysis and Tukey's post hoc test.
Findings: The mean scores of quality of life (F=11.281; p=0.003) and thought control strategies (F=38.016; p=0.0001) were significantly different in pre-test and post-test of the two groups. Meanwhile, the quality of life follow-up scores (F=5.541; p=0.027) and thought control strategies (F=39.796; p=0.0001) showed a significant increase compared to the pre-test.
ACT is effective in increasing quality of life and in derceasing thought control strategy in veterans with PTSD.