The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction on Emotion Regulation and Executive Functions of Pregnant Women with Social Anxiety Disorder

Pregnancy, labor, and childbirth are associated with an increased risk of mental disorders, one of which is social anxiety. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of stress-based mind-awareness therapy on emotional regulation and executive functions of pregnant women with social anxiety disorder.

The present study was of semi-experimental design with pre-test/post-test and control group. The statistical population of the study included 243 pregnant women referred to Taleghani Hospital in Tehran during September to February 2017, among whom 60 women who scored above 15 on the social anxiety scale were selected by convenience sampling method and were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups, each including 30 individuals. The research tools included the scale of executive functions, cognitive emotion regulation and social anxiety. Data analysis was performed using single-variable covariance analysis via SPSS software version 22.

The mean (SD) age of the participants in the experimental group was 33.1 (5.1) and the control group 34.7 (5.3). The mean (SD) score of the executive function of the experimental group was 9.5 (2.7) in the pre-test, which increased to 13.3 (3.1) in the post-test (P<0.01); however, the mean (SD) score of the executive function in the control group in the pre-test was 9.1 (2.4) and varied to 9.7 (2.5) in the post-test, which was not statistically significant. The mean (SD) score of positive emotional strategies in the experimental group in the pre-test were 56.5 (8.9) which increased to 61.7 (10.2) in the post-test (P<0.01); however, the mean (SD) score of positive emotional strategies in the control group was 57 (9.1) in the pretest and varied to 57.2 (9.2) in the post-test, which was not statistically significant. The mean (SD) score of negative strategies for cognitive-emotional regulation of the experimental group was 60.4 (10.8) in the pretest, which decreased to 55.7 (10.5) in the post-test (P<0.01); however, the mean (SD) score of negative strategies for cognitive-emotional regulation of the control group was 60.1 (10.3) in the pre-test and varied to 59.5 (9.6) in the post-test, which was not statistically significant. Mindfulness-based stress reduction treatment lead to increased positive emotion regulation (F=12.4, P<0.001), reduced negative emotion regulation (F=15.2, P<0.001), and increased in executive functions (F=7.1, P<0.001) among pregnant women with social anxiety disorder.

The study showed that the mind-awareness approach can increase the executive functions and positive strategies of cognitive regulation and reduce the negative strategies of emotional regulation