Investigating the effects of reality therapy on communication skills and dysfunctional attitudes of patients with substance abuse in Sari, Iran.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of reality therapy on communication skills and dysfunctional attitudes of substance abuse addicts in Sari, Iran. Both field and library research have been used to collect data for the purpose of this study. As for library research, different resources were used including scientific papers, books and internet based materials and for field research subjects were given two questionnaires. The subjects of this study were 34 patients with substance abuse who were randomly selected and divided into a control group and an experimental group. This was a quasi-experimental study with pre-test post-test and control group. The two questionnaires used in this study were Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (Weissman and Beck,1978) and Queendom’s Communication Skills Test-Revised (2004). When subjects have filled in the questionnaires, the experimental group underwent ten 90 minute sessions of intervention (once a week) about the content of reality therapy. After the intervention the subjects were again given the questionnaires as post-test. SPSS software and Covariance analysis were used for the analysis of data. Results revealed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of pre-test and post-tests of experimental and control group which means reality therapy can significantly improve the communication skills and dysfunctional attitudes in patients with substance abuse.