Comparing the Effectiveness of emotion focused therapy with compassion Focused therapy on sleep quality and irrational beliefs in patients with early headache symptoms

Primary headache, as one of the most pervasive pain disorders, has drawn attention to the welfare problems of patients with primary headache symptoms, especially regarding sleep quality and irrational beliefs. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy and compassion-focused therapies on sleep quality and irrational beliefs in patients with primary headache symptoms.

This quasi-experimental study was conducted with a pretest-posttest control group design. The sample consisted of 45 patients with primary headache symptoms referring to the neurology clinic of Khatam Al-Anbia Hospital in Tehran, Iran. The samples were selected using the purposive sampling method and randomly divided into two experimental groups and one control group (n=15 each). The experimental groups underwent emotion-focused and compassion-focused therapies.

The results showed that there was a significant difference between research groups in the post-test stage regarding sleep quality (F=17.04, df=2, and P<0.01) and irrational beliefs (F=77.27, df=2, and P<0.01). The results of the Bonferroni post hoc test showed that emotion-focused and compassion-focused therapies had a significant effect on sleep quality (P<0.01) and irrational beliefs (P<0.01).

Based on the results, emotion-focused and compassion-focused therapies were two appropriate treatments to increase sleep quality and reduce irrational beliefs among patients with primary headache symptoms. Patients, by participating in group sessions of these two therapies, developed adaptive and positive coping strategies to control attacks and improve headache symptoms as much as possible.