The Effect of Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) on Resiliency of Women with Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic progressive disease of the central nervous system with various physical and psychological disabling symptoms that causes many problems for the patient. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of compassion-focused therapy on resiliency in women with multiple sclerosis. This research was an experimental intervention using a post-test pre-test with control group. The research population consisted of all female patients with active case in MS Society of Tehran in 2016. The sample consisted of 30 female patients who were selected according to the criteria of entry and exit, and the acquired scores in the questionnaire were selected by random sampling and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The instrument was the Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale. After taking the pretest from both groups, the experimental group received 8 consecutive two-hour treatment-centered compassion-based treatments in a group and weekly manner. The control group was placed on the waiting list. Data were analyzed by SPSS software using ANOVA test (ANCOVA). The mean and standard deviation of the scores of the subjects in the experimental group were 66.73±14.27 in the pre-test and 87.33±7.6 in the post-test phase. In the control group, the mean and standard deviation of the resiliency scores before and after the intervention were 59±16.01 and 58.8±15.85. The results of covariance analysis showed that there is a significant difference between the mean of the experimental and control groups with the control of the effect of the test (F=78.63 and p<0.01), which indicates the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy in increasing the resilience of the interventional subjects. CFT, as a new therapeutic method, is likely to be an appropriate intervention for reducing psychological problems and increasing mental health among MS patients. It is recommended that MS associations across Iran would use this therapeutic method for enhancing psychological health of patients.