The effect of functional analytical psychotherapy on treatment adherence and self-care behaviors in female patients with acute myocardial infarction

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of functional analytical psychotherapy on treatment adherence and self-care behaviors in female patients with acute myocardial infarction.

The severity of cardiovascular disease is affected by cognitive and behavioral function in people experiencing acute myocardial infarction. Therefore, with effective and modern treatments for this problem, effective results could be expected.

The research method was quasi-experimental pre-test post-test and follow-up design with control group. A sample of 30 women with a history of acute myocardial infarction who had been admitted to Seyed Al-Shohada Heart Hospital in Urmia, Iran, in 2021, were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and randomly assigned to experimental (N=15) and control (N=15) group. Tsai et al. (2010) Functional Analytical Psychotherapy Package was implemented for experimental group in 10 sessions of 45 minutes duration. Before and after the sessions, and also, 3 months after intervention, both members of experimental and control groups completed Treatment Adherence Questionnaire and Self-Care Behavior Questionnaire as pre-test, post-test and follow-up measurements. Data were analyzed using mixed model analysis of covariance in SPSS Version 18.

The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference between experimental and control groups in term of the means of treatment adherence and self-care behaviors in pre-test, post-test and follow-up. Functional analytical psychotherapy had a greater effect on improving self-care behaviors (0.912) than treatment adherence (0.897) in female patients with acute myocardial infarction (P≥0.0001).

These results emphasize the effect of functional analytical psychotherapy in cognitive and behavioral domains in the treatment of female patients with acute myocardial infarction.