Investigating the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on treatment compliance and pain intensity in patients with irritable bowel syndrome

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a functional disorder in the intestinal-gastric system that is defined by specific intestinal-gastric symptoms without an organic cause. The aim of the research was to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on treatment compliance and pain intensity in patients with irritable bowel syndrome.

The present study was a semi-experimental research method of pre-test-post-test design with a control group and a 2-month follow-up group. The statistical population of this research was all the patients with irritable bowel syndrome in Isfahan city in 2017, 15 people were selected by the available sampling method and randomly divided into an intervention group using the acceptance and commitment treatment method and a control group. Data were collected using Seyed Fatemi et al. treatment adherence questionnaire (TAQ) (2017) and Durkin et al. pain questionnaire (SF-MPQ-2) (2009). The intervention of acceptance and commitment therapy was carried out during 8 sessions of 90 minutes once a week; But the control group did not receive any intervention. The research data was analyzed by variance analysis with repeated measurements.

The findings showed that the acceptance and commitment treatment method is effective on the treatment compliance of patients with irritable bowel syndrome (p<0.05). Also, the treatment method of acceptance and commitment of pain severity in patients with irritable bowel syndrome was effective (P<0.05).

It can be concluded that acceptance and commitment therapy is effective on treatment adherence and pain intensity.