Comparison of the effect of acceptance and commitment-based therapy and emotion regulation educatiopn on chronic pain and self-care in women with coronary artery disease

The aim of this study was to compare the effect of acceptance and commitment-based therapy and emotion regulation education on chronic pain and self-care in women with coronary artery disease.

Research shows that coronary heart disease is one of the leading causes of death and disability in the world, which reduces the useful efficiency of people. Psychological factors can change many aspects of patients' lives and relationships.

The research design was quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test with control group. The statistical population in this study included all women with coronary artery disease referred to Tabriz Heart Hospital in 2020. Women who had inclusion criteria were selected and randomly assigned to the first experimental group (n=15), the second experimental group (n=15) and the control group (n=15). The first experimental group (emotion regulation education) was subjected to 12 sessions of 90-minute duration (three sessions per week), The second experimental group (acceptance and commitment-based therapy) received 8 sessions of 90-minute duration, and the control group did not receive any intervention. The chronic pain scale of Von Korff et al. and the self-care scale of Rigel et al. were used to collect the data. Data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance and LSD post hoc test in SPSS Version 21.

The results showed that treatment based on acceptance and commitment and emotion regulation education have an effect on chronic pain and self-care of patients with coronary artery occlusion (P ≤0.0001), as they reduced chronic pain and improve patients' self-care. The results also showed that acceptance and commitment therapy has a greater effect on chronic pain and patients' self-care than emotion regulation education.

Attention to acceptance and commitment therapy and emotion regulation education can play a role in reducing the psychological problems of women with coronary artery disease.