The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in the Resilience of Recovered COVID-19 Patients at the Peak of the Pandemic

The onset of the COVID-19 outbreak brought unprecedented psychological and emotional consequences, especially for recovered patients, so resiliency in disasters could be helpful.

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in the increasing resilience of recovered COVID-19 patients at the peak of the pandemic.

This research was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design and control group. The statistical population of this study included all recovered COVID-19 patients with a mean age of 33.06 years at the peak of the pandemic in Isfahan (N = 30) in 2021-2022. They were selected by purposive sampling and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (15 subjects in each group). After performing the pretest, the experimental group received a CBT program for 12 sessions, and then the post-test was performed. The required data were collected using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC; 2003).

The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and SD) and inferential statistics (analysis of covariance [ANCOVA]) using SPSS version 20. The findings showed that CBT led to increased resilience and had a significant effect on the experimental group (P < 0.01).

CBT can be considered an effective treatment in reducing problems and improving the psychological indicators of recovered COVID-19 patients.