Effectiveness of ACT Enriched with Compassion in Increasing Resilience and Self-efficacy of Patients with Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is damage to some point of spinal cord or spinal neurons of end of spinal channel that frequently causes permanent changes in body’s strength, sensation, and other performances below the damaged point. When someone suffers from SCI may feel that all aspects of his/her life including mental, emotional, and social is affected. Thus, the current research aimed to examine the effectiveness of the acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) enriched with compassion on improvement of resilience and self-efficacy of patients with SCI in Isfahan province.

Methods and Materials:

 The research design was semi experimental with pre- and post-test and control group and random assignment. The research population includes all patients with SCI of Isfahan among whom 30 were recruited using inclusion and exclusion criteria and randomly assigned to either treatment or control group equally. The subjects filled out Connor & Davidsonchr('39')s (2003) Resilience Scale and Maddux, Mercandandt, Prentice-Dan, Jacobs, & Rogers’ (1982) General Self-Efficacy Test for both pre-test and post-test. Then, the treatment group received 8, 90-min weekly sessions of ACT enriched with compassion while the control group received no treatment. The data were analyzed using analysis of covariance and via statistical package for social sciences version 25.

The results of the analysis showed that the training statistically, significantly improved the patientschr('39') resiliency and self-efficacy (p <.01).

According to the results, the ACT enriched with compassion is efficient in increasing resiliency and self-efficacy beliefs of SCI patients.