Comparison of the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy on sleep quality and health-promoting lifestyle behaviors in patients with heart failure

The aim of this study was to compare the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy on sleep quality and health promoting lifestyle behaviors in patients with heart failure. Background. Consequences of heart failure create problems with sleep quality and lifestyle that affect the course of the disease. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy are some of the potential effective interventions on those.

The present study was a quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design and a control group with quarterly follow-up. The sample size was 45 people which were purposefully selected and then randomly assigned to two experimental groups (n=30) and one control group (n=15). Data were collected in three stages using the Sleep Quality Index Pittsburgh of Boyce et al. (1989) and the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Questionnaire of Walker et al. (1987). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy for experimental groups were performed and data analysis was performed in SPSS-25 software through analysis of covariance.

Both acceptance and commitment therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in post-test and follow-up (F=181.224, P≤0.0001) and (F=62.315, P≤0.0001), improved sleep quality and health-promoting lifestyle behaviors when compared to the control group. Despite the effect of both interventions, the superiority of acceptance and commitment therapy (P< 0.001) on health promoting lifestyle was found. There was no statistically significant difference between two interventions (P=0.967) in terms of improving sleep quality.

According to the results, both interventions were effective on sleep quality and health-promoting lifestyle behaviors, especially acceptance and commitment therapy was more effective on health-promoting lifestyle behaviors, so, in medical settings it can be used along with medical treatments for patients with heart failure.