Effectiveness of Stress Management based on Cognitive-behavioral Training on Sleep Quality and Cognitive Bias of Patients with Primary Hypertension

Hypertension is a common disease which affects people's health. Individuals who are week in stress coping and respond to stress with bias are more likely to suffer from chronic physical and mental disease. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral based stress management training on sleep quality and cognitive bias in patients with primary hypertension.

in this experimental study with pretest-posttest and control group. 32 females with hypertension were selected based on inclusion criteria and randomly divided into control (n = 16) and intervention (n = 16) groups. Both groups completed the standard questionnaire of Petersburg sleep quality and cognitive bias before and after the intervention. The intervention group received eight sessions of cognitive-behavioral based stress management training and the control group did not receive any training from the research team during study. Data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistical methods.

The results indicated there was a significant difference in the quality of sleep between the intervention and control groups after intervention (p> 0.05). Self-focused (0.03) and others (3.74) focused attention components of cognitive bias were not significantly different with control group (P > 0.05). This finding showed that there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in this component.

Based on the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that cognitive-behavioral based stress management training is effective on sleep quality and women with primary hypertension and can be used as an effective and safe complementary therapy.