The Effectiveness of Mental Imagery in Reducing Anxiety and Increasing Happiness among Heart Surgery Patients

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of mental imagery training on reducing anxiety and increasing happiness among heart surgery patients.
Material and This study was semi-experimental along with experimental and control groups. First, Sampling was done by selecting heart disease patients who had referred to NoorNajat hospital in Tabriz. Next, based on the sampling target, of these, 40 were selected in the first stage and 20 of them were assigned to experimental group and 20 in control group randomly. Happiness and anxiety questionnaire was completed by them in their pre-test. For the participants in the experimental group, 10 sessions of mental imagery meetings were held for them as in groups at the hospital. When the meetings were finished, they were asked to complete the questionnaires again. For data analysis, descriptive and analytical statistics and single-variable analysis of covariance were applied.
The findings showed that the mean anxiety scores were significantly reduced and the mean score of happiness in experimental group was significantly increased in comparison with control group.
These results showed that mental imagery is effective on decreasing anxiety and increasing the happiness of heart surgery patients.