Effectiveness of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy on Fatigue, Anxiety and Depression among Staff with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

  Chronic fatigue syndrome is a complex disabling disorder and the symptoms of the disease are common. It can be named as weakness, muscle aches, memory weakness and mental disorientation, insomnia, chest pain, confusion, night sweats, weight loss and psychiatric problems such as depression and early suffering, anxiety, and so on. People with this syndrome, often show the occurrence of a unique fatigue that differs from other symptoms of fatigue. Most patients with diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome, also receive some diagnostic criteria for psychiatry, in particular, anxiety and depression disorders.

The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on fatigue, anxiety, depression of staff of Islamic Azad university, Isfahan (Khorasgan) branch, suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. Research method was quasi-experimental with a pre- and post-test design with a control group. For this purpose, 200 staff, according to Cohen et al. (2000), who had entry criteria for research, were selected by a randomized sampling method and responded to chronic fatigue syndrome (Jason, 2010), and quality of life questionnaire (Ware and Hays,1998). Twenty-eight persons who received diagnosis of fatigue syndrome were selected and assigned randomly to experimental and control groups (each group 14 persons). The subjects in the two groups, before and after intervention, and one month later, answered to research instruments, including fatigue scale (Chalder, 1993), hospital anxiety and depression scale (Zigmond and Snaith, 1983). Mindfulness based cognitive therapy was applied to experimental group, in 8 sessions with each session of 90 minutes, but no intervention was carried out in control group.

For data analysis, multiple analysis of covariance was used. Findings indicated a reduction in means of fatigue, anxiety and depression in experimental group, in comparison to control group (p ≤ 0.05). Findings indicated that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy has been effective on fatigue, anxiety and depression of staff with chronic fatigue syndrome.

Based on the findings of this research, reduction of fatigue, anxiety, and depression in staff suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy can be a useful as intervention.