The Effectiveness of Behavioral Activation Therapy on Cognitive Flexibility and Depression in Patients with a History of Cardiac Surgery

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral activation therapy on cognitive flexibility and depression in patients with a history of Cardiac surgery.

The quasi-experimental study was a pretest-posttest or control group. The statistical population included all Cardiac patients operated on in Tabriz heart hospitals. Based on this, about 60 people in two groups of 30 people including the experimental group (N=30) and the control group (N=30) were selected by Convenience Sampling. Beck, Steer and Brown (1996) standard depression questionnaires and Dennis and Wonder Wall (2010) cognitive flexibility questionnaire were used to collect data. Multivariate covariance was used to analyze the data.

The results of multivariate analysis of covariance of behavioral activation therapy on depression (P>0.05) and cognitive flexibility (P>0.01) and its components including alternatives (P>0.05), control (P>0.01), alternatives to human behaviors (P>0.05), are effective. Therefore, the use of behavioral activation therapy has a significant effect on depression and cognitive flexibility and its components, including alternatives, controls and alternatives to human behaviors in the experimental group.

Behavioral activation treatment reduces depression and increases cognitive flexibility and its components, including alternatives, controls and alternatives to its human behaviors in patients undergoing Cardiac surgery.