The Effectiveness of Religion-based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (RCBT) on Adherence to Treatment, Hope, and Glycosylated Hemoglobin in Type 2 Diabetes Patients

Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases with many consequences if ignored. Therefore, having hope, following treatment, and controlling blood sugar are vital. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of religion-based cognitive-behavioral therapy on adherence to treatment, hope, and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1C) levels in patients with type 2 diabetes.

This work was a quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test design and a control group. The statistical population was all diabetic patients referred to the comprehensive health service centers of Ghaemshahr in 2020, 30 of whom were selected by purposive sampling; then, they were randomly assigned to two groups of 15 experimental and control. The experimental group received ten 60-minute sessions of religion-based cognitive-behavioral therapy, while the control group did not receive any intervention. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance in spss26 software.

The results showed a significant difference between the experimental and control groups with pre-test control in terms of the variables of treatment adherence (F=39.42, p=0.001) and hope (F=37.73, p=0.001), which increased in the experimental group. However, there was no significant difference in HbA1C (p=0.065, F=3.68).

Due to the effectiveness of religion-based cognitive-behavioral therapy in increasing treatment adherence and the life expectancy of patients with type 2 diabetes, this method can be used as a complementary treatment along with medical therapies to improve their physical and mental health.