Comparison of the effect of existential therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy on death anxiety, peak experiences and mental health of patients with charcot marie tooth

Charcot Marie Tooth (CMT) is a genetic disease in which peripheral nerves are damaged, also known as hereditary sensory and motor neuropathy. Despite the impact of this disease on all aspects of the sufferers' lives, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of psychological treatments on death anxiety, peak experiences, and mental health of Charcot MarieTooth patients.

The present study was conducted with the aim of comparing the effect of existential therapy and therapy based on acceptance and commitment on death anxiety, peak experiences and mental health of patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.

The design of the current research was a quasi-experiment with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of this research included all patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease in Tehran in 2019 and the purposeful sampling method was available. After obtaining the necessary permits and coordinating with the patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth who met the necessary entry criteria to participate in the present study, 30 people were randomly assigned to the experimental groups (15 people in each group) and 15 people to the control group. In order to collect data, Templer's Death Anxiety Scale (1970), Wilson and Monta's Peak Experience Questionnaire (2015) and Keyes' Mental Health Questionnaire (2002) were used. For data analysis, multivariate covariance analysis was used to compare groups in research variables. SPSS22 software was also used to analyze the data.

The findings of the present study showed that both existential therapy approaches and acceptance and commitment-based therapy have a significant effect on death anxiety, peak experiences, and mental health of Charcot-Marie-Toth patients (P<0.05).

According to the obtained results, it can be concluded that existential therapy and therapy based on acceptance and commitment can be used by doctors, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals in order to moderate death anxiety, strengthen peak experiences and mental health of patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth.