The effectiveness of therapy based on acceptance and commitment with a focus on compassion on emotional processing and self-care in adolescent girls with premenstrual syndrome

This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy with a focus on compassion on emotional processing and self-care in adolescent girls with premenstrual syndrome. This research was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design and a control group. The statistical population included all the non-profit girls' school students who were studying in the educational center of Isfahan City in the academic year 2021-2022. The statistical sample included 30 of these girls who were selected purposefully. Then, 15 people were randomly replaced in the control group and 15 people in the experimental group. The intervention group received treatment based on acceptance and commitment with a focus on compassion during 8 sessions of 90 minutes once a week. Data were collected using the premenstrual symptoms screening scale of Steiner et al. (PSST, 2003) and Bakker et al.'s emotional processing (EPS, 2007), Arum adolescent self-care scale (AS-CLQ, 2009) and using the method Analysis of covariance was analyzed.  The results showed that by controlling the effect of the pre-test, there is a significant difference at the level of 0.05 between the average post-test scores of emotional processing and self-care in the experimental and control groups. It can be concluded that the treatment based on acceptance and commitment, focusing on compassion, emotional processing, and self-care has been effective in adolescent girls with premenstrual syndrome.