Effectiveness of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy on Resilience and Intensity of Pain Experience of Women With Chronic Headache

Theoretical advances and research developments have provided the basis for conceptualizing headache as a psycho-physiological disorder, and have eventually led to the use of behavioral and psychological therapies for headache. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on resilience and intensity of pain experience in women with chronic headache.

This study was semi-experimental with a pretest-posttest & follow up control group design. The population of this study consisted of all women with headaches in 2019 for the treatment of headache to the Government Clinic neurologist referred Esfahan city formed. In total, 30 women were selected by purposive sampling as the participants and randomly divided into tow groups. The members of the experimental group received their group-specific treatment in 8 sessions of 1.5 hours; But members of the control group did not receive any treatment. Analysis of findings through repeated measures analysis of variance test.

In the pretest, the mean and standard deviation of  resilience & chronic headaches There was no significant difference in the experimental and control groups (p>0.05). Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy in post-test improved Resilience and intensity of pain experience women with chronic headache (p<0.001). In the follow-up phase, the effect of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy was lasting (p<0.001).

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy may be effective in reducing the severity of headaches by reducing catastrophic headaches, thereby reducing pain-related fears, and therefore in increasing resilience in women with chronic headaches, and can be considered a useful preventive strategy.