The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Body Deformity and Psychological Well-Being in Women Seeking Cosmetic Surgery: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Cosmetic surgery is a medical procedure that has become widespread in Iran despite its high costs and physical and psychological consequences. Therefore, it is necessary to take effective interventions to improve psychological trauma in these people. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on body deformity and psychological well-being in women applying for cosmetic surgery in Sari.

This quasi-experimental study was carried out with pre-test, post-test design and follow-up with a control group. The statistical population of the study included all women referred to cosmetic surgery clinics in Sari in 2021. From these clients, 30 people were selected by availability and randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups (15 people in either group). To collect data, the Body Deformity Questionnaire of Rabiei et al., and Ryff’s Psychological Well-being Questionnaire were used. The experimental group underwent acceptance and commitment treatment for 8 sessions of 45 minutes and the control group did not receive any treatment. To analyze the data, two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used.

The results showed that acceptance and commitment based treatment reduced the body deformity and increased psychological well-being in women referred to the cosmetic surgery clinics in Sari (p<0.001).

According to the findings of this study, it can be said that treatment based on acceptance and commitment in people seeking cosmetic surgery can increase the level of mental health and reduce the body deformity in them.