Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Distress Tolerance and Sense of Coherence in Infertile Women in Mashhad

Infertility as a stressful event is associated with several psychological problems which require psychological interventions. The present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment-based treatment on distress tolerance and psychological cohesion in infertile women in Mashhad.

This quasi-experimental study was conducted based on a pretest-posttest control group design with a follow-up period. The statistical population included all infertile women referring to Montesseri infertility clinic in Mashhad during winter 2018. A total of 30 subjects were selected via convenience sampling and randomly assigned to two groups of experimental and control. The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy was administered to the experimental group during eight 60-min sessions over eight weeks, while the control group received no training. Antonovski Psychological Cohesion Scale and Distress Tolerance Scale by Simons & Gaher were used before and after the intervention to collect information. Data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 22) using repeated measures analysis of variance test at the significance level of α=0.05.

The results demonstrated that the acceptance and commitment-based therapy was effective in the improvement of distress tolerance and sense of coherence in infertile women (P<0.05), and the results persisted in the follow-up period (P<0.05).

As evidenced by the obtained results, acceptance and commitment therapy can be used to reduce psychological problems and promote psychological cohesion and distress tolerance among infertile women.