EEffectiveness of Mindfulness in Decreasing Stress, Anxiety and Depression among the Substance Abusers

Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique. This method has produced positive effect on decreasing the stress and increasing the life quality among the patients suffering from chronic disorders. Hence, the present research aimed to assess the effectiveness of mindfulness in decreasing the stress, anxiety and depression among the substance abusers. Therefore, the research employed a semi-experimental method with pretest, posttest and control group design. A sample of 60 addicted individuals was randomly selected from the patients hospitalized in Shahriyar Province and Andisheh Rahayi centers for addiction treatment. Subsequently, they were assigned to the experimental and control groups and were assessed with regard to the stress, depression and anxiety prior to and subsequent to the treatment. The experimental group underwent eight, two-hour sessions of mindfulness therapy and the control group didn’t receive any therapeutic treatment. Multivariate covariance analysis indicated significant between-group difference between pretest and posttest scores. It can be concluded that mindfulness therapy is effective in decreasing the anxiety, depression and stress among the substance abusers.