Effectiveness Transference Focused Psychotherapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Promoting the Mental Health of Staff working in Hospitals Covered by Social Security in Tehran

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of transference focused psychotherapy and acceptance and commitment on promoting the mental health of staff working in hospitals covered by social security in Tehran province.

The present study was a quasi-experimental pretest and posttest. The statistical population of the present study was the personnel working in hospitals covered by social security in Tehran province. 120 of these personnel from three hospitals were randomly divided into two experimental groups and one control group (40 people in each group). All three groups answered the Mental Health Questionnaire (SCL 90 R) as a pretest. Then, the transfer-oriented treatment group and the acceptance and commitment treatment group (during 8 sessions) received experimental intervention and the control group did not receive any kind of intervention. At the end of the sessions, all three groups answered the questions of the mental health questionnaire again. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to analyze the collected data.

The results of the present study showed that both transference focused psychotherapy and acceptance and commitment are effective in promoting the mental health of staff working in hospitals covered by social security. There is also a difference between the effectiveness of transference focused psychotherapy and acceptance and commitment therapy in promoting the mental health of staff working in hospitals covered by social security. Thus, in the mental health of the transference focused psychotherapy group, the components of anxiety, morbid fear, psychosis and paranoid gained significantly lower scores compared to the acceptance and commitment group.

Both methods can be used by counselors and therapists to promote the mental health of staff working in hospitals covered by social security.