Effectiveness of Compassionate Mind Group Training on Improvement of Physical Symptoms of People With Ulcerative Colitis (One Year Follow-Up)

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory chronic disease of unknown etiology that is characterized by periods of remission and relapses. Interventions that are able to prevent disease relapse or improve the physical symptoms, will have a huge impact on mental health and quality of life in patients with ulcerative colitis.

This quasi-experimental study had a pretest-posttest-follow-up design with a control group and a one-year follow-up. The population included patients with UC who visited the Gastrointestinal Clinic at Bahonar Hospital, Karaj, Iran in Fall 2018 and Winter 2019. 34 UC patients were selected using purposeful sampling and were randomly assigned to two equal-size control and experimental groups. The experimental group attended twelve three-hour sessions of compassionate mind training (Gilbert 2010) and the Control group had a three-hour workshop on UC with no psychological interventions. Demographic Information Questionnaire (designed by the first author) and Lichtiger Colitis Activity Index were used. Data were analyzed by single factor covariance analysis and dependent t-test.

Results showed compassionate mind training was significantly effective in improving the physical symptoms in UC patients, both at the end of the interventions (P < 0.01) and at the end of the 1-year follow-up (P < 0.01).

Given that compassionate mind training was effective in improving the physical symptoms of UC patients, this intervention can be used as a complementary therapy in addition to medical treatments in order to improve mental health services and establish policies regarding this matter.