The Effectiveness of Group Psychotherapy Based on Acceptance and Commitment on Reducing Pain Severity in Patients with Chronic Pain

One of the most common reasons for referral to a doctor is pain, which not only causes many physical problems in the person but also causes psychological symptoms and disorders as well as various emotional reactions in the person. The psychological characteristics of patients with chronic pain disorder predict the duration of pain and disability caused by it. Among psychological approaches, therapy based on acceptance and commitment has good abilities to control the attitudes and perceptions of individuals against life events. It is assumed that this type of treatment is effective in reducing the pain severity of patients with chronic pain. Therefore, in this research, we seek to examine the effectiveness of group psychotherapy based on acceptance and commitment on reducing pain severity.

The present study was a quasi-experimental research of pretest-posttest type with control group and randomized assignment. The statistical population included all patients with chronic pain referring to Amir-al-Momenin Pain Clinic and Hospital in Zabol city in 2017, among them, 40 patients (male and female) were selected by targeted sampling through clinical interviews and after meeting conditions for entering and leaving the research, they have entered the treatment process. From the sample, 20 subjects were assigned to the experimental group and 20 subjects were assigned to the control group by simple randomization. The instrument of this study was the questionnaire of Von Korff for the severity of pain and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which consists of 8 sessions of acceptance and commitment-based psychotherapy, which the experimental group received in group by a psychologist, while the control group did not receive any intervention.

According to the results, the two groups had a significant difference in the severity of pain in the post-test stage with the control of the effect of the pre-test (p value < 0.0001).

The results of this study indicate the effectiveness of group therapy based on acceptance and commitment on the pain severity chronic pain patients. Therefore, the use of acceptance and commitment-based therapy along with drug therapy in these patients is strongly recommended in pain clinics and hospitals to control pain more and more and improve their quality of life.