The Effectiveness of Mindfulness Training on Cognitive Emotion Regulation, Experiential Avoidance, and Methadone Dose Reduction in Patients under Methadone Treatment

This research was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness training on cognitive emotion regulation, experiential avoidance, and methadone dose reduction in patients under methadone treatment.

The current study was quasi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population in this study consisted of all individuals referring to addiction treatment clinics in the city of Rasht in 2022. Of them, 30 people were selected using the convenience sampling method and were randomly assigned to two experimental (n = 15) and control (n = 15) groups. Participants of both groups completed cognitive regulation questionnaire and the acceptance and action questionnaire in the pre-test and post-test. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy was implemented on the experimental group according to the protocol of Boen, Chawla, and Marlatt (2017) in eight 80-minute sessions with the frequency of one session per week. The data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance.

The results showed that mindfulness training led to increasing adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and decreasing maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies, experiential avoidance, and methadone dose in patients under methadone treatment.

According to the findings, it can be said that mindfulness can be used as an effective intervention in patients under methadone treatment.