Comparison of the Effectiveness of Behavioral Activation Therapy and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Cognitive-Behavioral Avoidance in People with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Life satisfaction in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder is lower than normal people in society, so by treating this disorder, the quality of life and life satisfaction in these people can be increased. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of behavioral activation therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral therapy on cognitive emotion regulation and cognitive-behavioral avoidance in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The present study is an applied research and quasi-experimental method is a pre-test-post-test with a control group. The statistical population included patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder in Karaj in 1398. A total of 45 people were selected and randomly assigned to three groups of behavioral activation therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral therapy and control group. Cognitive emotion regulation and cognitive-behavioral avoidance questionnaires were used to measure the effectiveness of treatments. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis of covariance and post hoc test using SPSS-18 software were used.

The results of analysis of covariance showed that there is a statistically significant difference between the effectiveness of behavioral activation therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral therapy in adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies (P=0.0001, F=57.71). But there was no statistical difference in the effectiveness of these two treatments in cognitive-behavioral avoidance. Both treatments have been equally effective in cognitive-behavioral avoidance.

Behavioral activation-based therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral therapy have an effect on improving cognitive emotion regulation strategies and reducing cognitive-behavioral avoidance in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Therefore, these two therapies can be used to regulate emotions and avoidance in obsessive-compulsive patients.