The Effectiveness of Attachment-based Therapy on Attachment Style, Difficulty in Emotional Regulation and Medical Adherence in Patients with Chronic Peptic Ulcer

Peptic ulcer is one of the common psychosomatic diseases which is suggested to investigate the effectiveness of psychological treatments on the recovery and management of this disease. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of attachment-based therapy on attachment style, difficulty in emotional regulation and medical adherence in patients with chronic peptic ulcer.

This semi-experimental study was conducted with a pre-test, post-test, follow-up design and a control group. The statistical population of the current study included all patients with chronic peptic ulcer who referred to specialized polyclinics and internal specialists in Mashhad during the research period. Sampling was done by available method. 34 patirnts who met the conditions for entering the study were randomly placed in two intervention and control groups. The intervention group received attachment-based therapy. The participants were evaluated with revised version of adult attachment scale(1990), Morisky(2008) medical adherence questionnaire and Gratz and Roemer(2004) emotional difficulty scale. To analyze the data, the statistical method of repeated analysis of variance was used in SPSS22 statistical software.

The results showed that the participants in the intervention group reported a more secure attachment style, higher medical adherence and better emotional regulation after the intervention. The scores of the participants in the intervention group compared to the control group showed a significant decrease in avoidant and anxious attachment styles (P<0.001).

Therefore, it can be said that attachment-based therapy can be used to better adapt to chronic peptic ulcer disease.