The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Reducing Drug Tendency and Death Anxiety among Male Adolescents with Substance Abuse

 Abuse and substance abuse is one of the most significant psychological and social problems of adolescence. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of cognitive therapy based on mindfulness on reducing substance abuse and death anxiety among male adolescents with substance abuse. The present study was a pretest-posttest study with a control group among a convenience sample of adolescent males with substance abuse referred to addiction treatment clinics in the district 4 of Tehran who had high drug abuse scores. They were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Data were collected in two stages before and after 8 sessions intervention by two questionnaires the status of consumption of drugs and the Templar death anxiety scale. Paired t-test, independent t-test and repeated measures variance analysis were used to analyze the data. The results showed that there was a significant difference between two groups in terms of substance abuse and death anxiety. Mental awareness-based cognitive therapy was effective on reducing substance abuse and death anxiety. The findings suggest that mindfulness therapy could be effective in reducing substance use and death anxiety among adolescents.