THE STUDY OF EFFECTIVENESS OF COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THERAPY IN GROUP ON MENTAL HEALTH AMONG PRIMARY MS PATIENTS

Multiple sclerosis disease is one of the most common chronic diseases in central nervous system (CNS). The nature of chronic disease, not having a good prognosis and definite cure are causes of having highest prevalence in various mental disorders like depression and anxiety. The purpose of this part of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral group therapy on mental health of primary MS patients. This study was conducted on 28 patients who had the lowest level of general health selected by accessible sampling and were divided into two different groups of experimental and control groups. The experimental group attended 10 sessions of cognitive-behavioral group therapy based on Michael Free approach that lasted nearly 75-90 minutes and was held once a week (one session per week) and the control group received no intervention. The measuring instrument was General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) which was performed in two stages (pretest and posttest) and the data were analyzed using Covariate (Ancova) Test. Accordingly covariance analysis emphasized that cognitive-behavioral group therapy enhanced the mental health in posttest of the experimental group (p <0/01). Cognitive-behavioral group therapy improves the mental health in primary patients. Hence this method can be used in hospitals and nursing homes as a complementary treatment.