The Effectiveness of Positive Psychotherapy on Alexithymia and Recurrent Negative Thoughts in Cardiovascular Patients

Consider the role of psychological problems in the incidence and recurrence of cardiovascular disease in individuals it is necessary to treat these factors while identifying them. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of positive psychotherapy on alexithymia and repetitive negative thinking in cardiovascular patients. The semi-experimental research method was pre-test-post-test design with control group and 3-month follow-up stage. The statistical population of the study included all cardiovascular patients referred to Imam Reza Heart Hospital in Mashhad in 2021. Among them, 30 subjects (14 males and 16 females) were selected by purposeful sampling method and randomly assigned to two experimental groups (15) and control group (15). The experimental group received psychotherapy based on positive psychology perspective in 6 sessions, 60 minutes individually. To collect data, Alexei Teymia Toronto-20 questionnaire (Begby et al., 1994) and recurring negative thoughts (McEavi et al., 2010) were used. The data were analyzed using repeated variance analysis test. According to the results of this study, there was a significant difference in the scores of emotional failure variable and its components including difficulty in identifying emotions, difficulty in describing emotions and objective thinking, and repeated negative thoughts variable, considering the main effect of time stages, the main effect of psychotherapy intervention and also the interactive effect of time stages with psychotherapy intervention (P<0.01). Positive psychotherapy had effectiveness and efficiency in reducing alexithya and repetitive negative thoughts in cardiovascular patients.