The Effectiveness of the Integrative Approach of Reality – Emotion-focused Therapy on the Quality of Sleep and Sexual Self-efficacy in Women with Hypothyroidism

Hypothyroidism is a clinical syndrome that occurs as a result of abnormalities in the production of thyroid hormones. Lack of this hurts sleep quality and sexual self-efficacy. The present study attempts to investigate the effectiveness of the Integrative approach of reality – Emotion- focused therapy on sleep quality and sexual self-efficacy in women with hypothyroidism.

The quasi-experimental research design was pre-test and post-test with the experimental and control groups. Among women who were admitted to the Shahid Rahimi hospital clinic with thyroid dysfunction, 30 were randomly selected and assigned to two experimental and control groups (15 people in each group). As a pre-test, sleep quality questionnaire (Petersburg, 1989) and sex self-efficacy questionnaire (Vaziri and Lotfi, 1392) were completed by the participants. Then an intervention with the Integrative approach of reality – Emotion-focused therapy for 10 sessions each lasting for 90 minutes was performed on the experiment group. Version 20 of SPSS software was used to analyze the data.

Multivariate and univariate analysis of covariance indicated the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variables being significant at the level of (0.01). Moreover, the Integrative approach of reality – Emotion-focused therapy has affected the quality of sleep and sexual self-efficacy in patients with hypothyroidism.

According to the results, the Integrative approach of reality – Emotion-focused therapy in patients with hypothyroidism can increase sexual self- efficacy and improve their sleep quality. Therefore, this method can be used to treat and reduce their problems.