The Comparison of the Effectiveness of Trans-diagnostic Treatment and the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Emotion Regulation and Illness Perception in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

Irritable bowel syndrome is the most common, costly and debilitating type of disorder among functional gastrointestinal disorders. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of trans-diagnostic treatment and acceptance and commitment therapy and the control group on emotion regulation and illness perception in patients with irritable bowel syndrome.

 The present research was quasi-experimental and pretest-posttest with a control group. The statistical population of this study included all of the patients with irritable bowel syndrome referred to Poursina Hakim Center of Isfahan during 2019-2020. The sample researchconsisted of 45 infected patients that were selected by available sampling method. In addition, they were randomly placed in two experimental groups (15 patients in each group) and one control group (with 15 patients). Integrated trans-diagnostic intervention of Barlow (2011) was done for the first experimental group during 8 session (90min). On the other hand, acceptance and commitment therapy of Hayes (2002) was done for the second experimental group during 8 session (90min) in two months interval and the control group did not receive any intervention. From the Broadbent et al.'s illness perception questionnaire and the Garnefski & Kraaij (2006) cognitive- emotion regulation and demographic data sheet were used to collect the findings. Multivariate and univariate analysis of covariance were used to analyze the data. The software used was SPSS version 19.

The results showed that trans-diagnostic therapeutic interventions and acceptance and commitment did not have a significant effect on increasing illness perception and reducing non-adaptive strategies. Trans diagnostic treatment and acceptance and commitment had affected on increasing adaptive strategies (P <0.05).

Therapists can adopt effective methods by using above- mentioned interventions in order to improve the condition of patients having irritable bowel syndrome to increase the efficacy of their treatments.