The Effect of Group Narrative Therapy on the Mental Coherence in Patients with Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury

Since traumatic spinal cord injury involves both the body and mind, in addition to pharmacological and physiological interventions, psychological interventions should also be considered in the management of the problems of this group of patients. The present study was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of group narrative therapy on the mental coherence of patients with traumatic spinal cord injuries.

This clinical trial study was conducted on 32 patients with traumatic spinal cord injury referred to Tabriz welfare counseling center. For the first time, the samples were selected by convenience sampling method and were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The patients in the experimental group received the group narrative therapy in 8 sessions of 90 minutes. The Flensburg sense of coherence questionnaire was completed before and immediately after the intervention sessions in both groups. Data were analyzed by ANOVA with repeated measures.

The mean age of the patients in the experimental group was 45.69±12.53 and in the control group, it was 44.63±12.98 years. In the pre-test, there was no significant difference between the mean mental coherence score of patients in the experimental group (73.06±14.62) and the control group (78.56±10.10) (p>0.05). After the group narrative therapy, the mean mental coherence score of the patients was significantly different between the experimental (88.69±4.60) and control (82.25±9.98) groups.

Group narrative therapy can increase the mental coherence of patients with traumatic spinal cord injuries. Therefore, it seems that psychiatric nurses can use this method as a suitable intervention in improving the mental coherence in this group of patients.