Effects of Combined Schema Therapy, Compassion-Focused Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy on Married Women's Life Expectancy

Hope is among the principled foundations of balance and psychological power determining life's achievements. Hope is an ability that helps an individual maintain motivation despite the difficulties in achieving the goal. Hopelessness puts a person in a situation of inactivity that cannot measure their different conditions and decide on them. Furthermore, frustration makes the person defenseless and caught against stressors. The person is severely disabled due to hopelessness and cannot measure and resolve different situations. Meta–Diagnostic therapies are therapeutic protocols based on typical clinical experiences and techniques common to specific cognitive–behavioral therapies. Schema therapy (ST), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and Compassion–Focused Therapy (CFT) have shared points and can be integrated. The present study aimed to determine the effects of ST, DBT, and CFT on life expectancy in women.

This was an applied and quasi–experimental research with a pretest–posttest and a control group design. The statistical population of this study included all women who were referred to Tonekabon and Ramsar Social Emergency Services in the spring and summer of 2017. Of the 100 respondents who completed the Life expectancy Questionnaire (Snyder et al., 1991), 60 were selected purposively; of them, 30 were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups. The study's inclusion criteria were the age range of 18–45 years, full consent to participate in this research, no mental disorder, and not receiving simultaneous psychological interventions. The exclusion criteria included absence from>2 sessions and dissatisfaction with attending intervention sessions. A Life Expectancy Questionnaire (Snyder et al., 1991) was used to collect the necessary data in the pretest and posttest stages. The intervention was performed in 12 ninety–minute weekly sessions; however, the control group received no intervention. Therapy sessions were a combination of ST, DBT, and CFT. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05.The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS using Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA).

The collected results indicated that the combination of ST, DBT, and CFT was effective in increasing hope (p<0.001), strategic hope (p<0.001), and overall life expectancy (p<0.001) scores. The effect coefficients of hope, strategic hope, and life expectancy were calculated as 0.32, 0.35, and 0.84, respectively.

The combination of ST, DBT, and CFT improved life expectancy in women. Thus, this type of treatment plan can increase life expectancy in this population.