Comparison of the effectiveness of short-term cognitive-behavioral group therapy and brief intervention on the mental health dimensions of addicts covered by harm reduction centers in Ahvaz

Drug addiction is one of the great challenges in human societies, it has many hidden and visible dimensions and angles, therefore, this issue can be considered from different aspects.

This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of short-term cognitive-behavioral group therapy and brief intervention on the mental health dimensions of addicts covered by harm reduction centers in Ahvaz.

This research was a quasi-experimental study with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up stages. From two harm reduction centers in Ahvaz, a simple center was randomly selected. After sampling and estimating the sample size, 80 people were selected and the study groups were divided into three groups (two experimental groups and one control group) in a simple random manner. A general health questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analyzed by repeated measure analysis of variance with SPSS.22 and a significance level of less than 0.05 was considered.

The results showed that cognitive-behavioral group therapy and brief intervention had no significant effect on physical symptoms and social functioning, but cognitive-behavioral group therapy and brief intervention had a significant effect on anxiety (P<0.001) and depression (P<0.001). Comparison of means shows that brief intervention is more effective than cognitive-behavioral group therapy (P<0.001).

It can be concluded that two cognitive-behavioral group therapies and brief interventions were effective in improving the mental health of addicts under the auspices of harm reduction centers in Ahvaz.