The effectiveness of treatment based on acceptance and commitment on death anxiety and Psychological hardiness in students with emotional distress

The purpose of this research was the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on death anxiety and Psychological hardiness in students with emotional distress. The quasi-experimental research design was pretest-posttest and follow-up with the control group. The statistical population of this research included all the students of Islamic Azad University, Ardabil branch in 2022. The sample size includes 30 people (15 subject in the experimental group and 15 subject in the control group) from the statistical population were selected by available targeted method and they were placed in two control and experimental groups. For the experimental group, acceptance and commitment was implemented, while the control group did not receive training. The research tools included the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (Laubiond and Laubiond, 1995), the Death Anxiety Scale (Templer, 1970) and the Psychological Handiness Questionnaire (Long and Goulet, 2003). The data was analyzed using the analysis of variance test with repeated measurements. The results showed that the treatment based on acceptance and commitment had a significant effect on improving death anxiety and psychological hardiness in the post-test and follow-up stages (P<0.001). The findings of this research provide useful information about acceptance and commitment-based therapy, and counselors and psychologists can use this intervention to improve death anxiety and psychological hardiness in emotionally distress students.