Comparison of the Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy and Hope-Based Group Therapy on Pain Perception in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

In patients with multiple sclerosis, pain is a common phenomenon and plays an important role in mental health and quality of life of these individuals. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of cognitive behavioral group therapy and hope-based group therapy on perception of pain in patients with MS.

This is a quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test design and control group. 45 patients were randomly selected from MS patients with pain who referred to neurological and neurology specialists in Karaj, Iran , in the first six months of 2017. The participants were assigned to three groups with 15 subjects (two intervention groups and one control group). Each intervention group was treated for 8 sessions and the control group did not receive cognitive behavioral interventions and hope-based therapy. Pain perception was measured in pretest and posttest with Pain Questionnaire (MPQ).

Independent results showed that both cognitive-behavioral therapy and hope-based therapy had a significant effect on pain relief in MS patients (P=0.05). Also, the effect of cognitive-behavioral therapy on emotional pain was significantly different from that of hope-based therapy (P<0.05).

The results indicated the importance of both methods, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, in reducing pain perception in patients with MS. Therefore, counselors and therapists can use both methods to reduce pain in these patients.