The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Ego Strength and Anxiety in People with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on the ego strength and anxiety among people with generalized anxiety disorder. The research method was quasi-experimental with pretest-post-test design and control group. The statistical population of the study consisted of all individuals with generalized anxiety disorder referring to counseling centers in Hamadan during November, 2017 to November, 2018. Twenty-four of them were selected through semi-structured clinical interview and were randomly assigned into two experimental (n =12) and control (n=12) groups. The experimental group individually received cognitive-behavioral therapy for 15 sessions of 60 minutes, once a week; the control group was on the waiting list. Data were collected from the Hamilton anxiety rating scale and psychosocial inventory of ego strengths used in two pre-test and post-test stages. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data. The results showed that by controlling for pre-test effect, there was a significant difference between post-test scores of experimental groups and control group on ego strength and anxiety variables. In other words, cognitive behavioral therapy was effective on increasing ego strength and decreasing general anxiety of the experimental group. According to the results of this study, recommended, cognitive behavioral therapy to increase the ability of people with generalized anxiety disorder to be used in the face of challenges and difficult life situations.