Effects of Compassion-focused Therapy on Psychological Wellbeing, Life Expectancy, and Psychological Flexibility in Individuals With Human Immunodeficiency Virus

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) causes a debilitating disease that affects the involved patient’s life. Therefore, investigating and introducing effective interventions to improve the status of these patients are among the necessities of modern research. This study aimed to investigate the effects of Compassion-focused Therapy (CFT) on enhancing psychological wellbeing, life expectancy, and psychological flexibility in HIV-infected patients.

This was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test-follow-up and a control group design. The statistical population included all patients with an active file in the Tehran Blood Transfusion Organization who were eligible to participate in the study according to inclusion criteria. Thirty-four cases were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly assigned into two groups of CFT and control (n=17/group). During the research process, 2 subjects from the experimental group and 2 subjects from the control group were removed. The study participants were assessed before, after, and three months after the intervention using the Ryff Psychological Well-being Questionnaire, Schneider’s Hope Scale, and Bond’s Psychological Flexibility Questionnaire. The obtained data were analyzed using repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) in SPSS.

The present research findings suggested that psychological wellbeing (F=112.83, P=0.001) life expectancy (F=117.02, P=0.001), and psychological flexibility (F=65.61, P=0.001) significantly increased in the CFT group, compared to the controls (P>0.001).

The obtained data revealed that CFT was effective in increasing psychological wellbeing, life expectancy, and psychological flexibility in HIV-infected patients.