Comparison of the Effectiveness between Cognitive-Behavioral and Acceptance and Commitment Therapieson Pain Self-Efficacy and Quality of life in Chronic Back Pain Patients

Back pain is one of the most pervasive chronic pains. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy in patients with chronic low back pain on pain self- efficacy and quality of life.

The present study is a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up with a control group which was done from February 2020 to March 2021. All patients with chronic low back pain who were referred to the specialty ward of Al-Zahra Hakimieh Clinic in Tehran, Iran were the statistical population of this study. The study population consisted of 45 people who were divided into three groups of 15 people through purposive sampling and random selection. The treatment method for the first group was cognitive-behavioral therapy while acceptance and commitment therapy was done for the second group and no training was considered for the control group. The World Health Organization's questionnaires of demographic information, pain self-efficacy and quality of life were the tools used in the study. The research hypotheses were specifically investigated using univariate covariance analysis.

45 patients (33 men and 12 women) participated with a mean age of 41.18±14.09 years. The F-ratio of univariate analysis of covariance was significant for the difference of all dependent variables between the experimental groups and the control group (p<0.001). To compare the effectiveness of two treatments on pain self-efficacy and quality of life, the results of the Bonferroni post hoc test were used. The difference between the mean of cognitive-behavioral therapy group and acceptance and commitment therapy group on pain self- efficacy and quality of life in both post-test and follow-up stages was not significant (p>0.05). Therefore, the effectiveness of the two treatments on pain self- efficacy and quality of life in these patients was the same.

Both cognitive-behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy are effective in increasing pain self-efficacy and quality of life among patients with chronic low back pain, but there is no significant difference between the two therapies.