The effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy in psychological flexibility and internal cohesion among cardiovascular patients with obesity

The present research was aimed to determine the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy in psychological flexibility and internal cohesion among cardiovascular patients with obesity.

The research method was semi-experimental with pretest, posttest, 3-month follow-up and control group design. The statistical population of the study were include all cardiovascular patients with obesity in Tehran who referred to Shariati and Rajaei hospitals in 2019-2020. The sampling method was convenience. Twenty-four subjects of patients have been assigned in to groups randomly (12 subjects in each group). The experimental group received emotion-focused treatment in two-hour weekly sessions for eight weeks. The control group were in wait list. To gather the data, acceptance and action questionnaire of Bund et al., (2011) and internal cohesion of Kimiaei et al., (2013) were used. The data were analyzed by SPSS-26 through Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA).

The findings showed the emotion-focused therapy in increasing the psychological flexibility and the internal cohesion is effective.

According the findings, it can be concluded that the emotion-focused therapy is an effective and consistent approach in improving the psychological circumstances of cardiovascular patients.