Effectiveness of mindfulness-based schema therapy in depression, anxiety and hopelessness of betrayed women: A randomized clinical trial

Infidelity causes mental health problems, family disruptions, rumination about events, and changes in the betrayed person’s beliefs toward the spouse. So, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of "mindfulness-based schema therapy" on depression, anxiety, and hopelessness of women affected by spouse infidelity.

It was semi-experimental research with a pretest-posttest and follow-up ‎control ‎group design‏. The research statistical population comprised all women who required psychological help due to their husband’s betrayal and referred to counseling centers in Mashhad from January to March 2018. A total of 24 women were selected by the available sampling method and were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups.  Both groups completed Beck depression, anxiety, and hopeless questionnaires in the pretest, posttest, and a two-month follow-up. The experimental group received mindfulness-based schema therapy‎ intervention (Van Vreeswijk et al., 2014) for ten sessions. Factorial repeated measures analysis of variance was used for data analysis.

The effect of the intragroup and intergroup interaction was significant in depression (p=0/01) and anxiety (p=0/001 ) but not significant in hopelessness (p=0/36). There is a significant difference in depression and anxiety from pretest to posttest and follow-up (p <0/01). But regarding hopelessness, the difference between pretest and posttest and follow-up is not significant (p> 0.05).

Mindfulness-based schema therapy can be used to reduce the depression and anxity of women affected by spouse betrayal.