Comparison of the Effectiveness of Positive Thinking Skills Training and Behavioral Activation Therapy in Self-Care and Corona Stress in Patients with Diabetes

Self-care behaviors are the most common behavioral response in attempts to prevent corona stress in patients with diabetes. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the effectiveness of positive thinking skills training and behavioral activation therapy on self-care and corona stress in patients with diabetes mellitus.

This was a semi-experimental study using a pretest-posttest and follow-up design with experimental and control groups. The statistical population included all the diabetic patients referring to the Vanoshe Diabetes Clinic in Qaemshahr city, Iran in 2020-2021, from among whom 45 patients were selected by accessible sampling technic based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and randomly divided into three 15-member groups, namely,  positive thinking skills training, behavioral activation therapy and a control group. The first and second experimental groups received positive thinking skills training in six 60-minute virtual sessions and behavioral activation therapy training in eight 70-minute virtual sessions, respectively, and the control group was in the waiting list. Data were collected using the Corona Stress Scale "CSS-18" and the Summery of Diabetes Self-Care Activities "SDSCA" and analyzed using the repeated measures of variance analysis and the Bonferroni post hoc test with SPSS-22.

The findings revealed that there was a significant difference between the two experimental groups and the control group. Both the positive thinking skills training and behavioral activation therapy interventions reduced corona stress (F= 15.73) and increased self-care (F= 16.17) in the patients, and the effects of the interventions in the follow-up phase were found to be continuing (p <0.05). In addition, the results of Bonferroni post hoc test showed that positive thinking skills raining was more effective than behavioral activation therapy on corona stress reduction (IJ= 9.02), while as regards self-care the behavioral activation therapy (IJ= 12.93) was more effective (p <0.05).

Based on the findings it can be concluded that positive thinking skills training and behavioral activation therapy interventions can be effective in improving self-care and corona stress reduction among diabetic patients. It is recommended that therapists and counselors use, in addition to other treatment methods, these therapies to improve the self-care and corona stress reduction in diabetic patients.