The effectiveness of group behavioral activation therapy on depression and identity crisis in patients with multiple sclerosis

Due to the chronic and long duration of multiple sclerosis and the importance of depression and identity crisis in these patients, the need to pay attention to the use of group behavioral activation therapy in these patients has been neglected.

The present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of group behavioral activation therapy on depression and identity crisis in patients with multiple sclerosis.

The present study was a quasi-experimental with a pretest and posttest design with a control group. The statistical population included all female patients with inflammatory bowel disease who were members of the inflammatory bowel disease association of Karaj in the period from May to December 2020. By purposive sampling method, 30 inflammatory bowel patients were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and randomly divided into two groups (15 people in the experimental group and 15 people in the control group) were replaced. Data collection tools included Beck et al. Depression Questionnaire (Second Edition (1996)) and Rajai et al.chr('39')s Identity Crisis Questionnaire (2008). The experimental group was treated with group behavioral activation in 8 sessions of 60 minutes, but the control group did not receive any intervention. For statistical analysis of data, mean, standard deviation and multivariate analysis of covariance were used with SPSS software version 24 at a significance level of α= 0/05.

The results showed that in the post-test, after adjusting the post-test scores on the pre-test scores, the mean scores of depression and identity crisis in the experimental group significantly decreased compared to the control group (p< 0/001).

Based on the results of the study, group behavioral activation therapy should be used as a complementary therapy along with other treatment methods to improve the psychological status of multiple sclerosis patients.