Effectiveness of rational emotive behavioral therapy on death anxiety, interpersonal dependency and mental well-being of household heads females

Household heads females are of the most vulnerable in the society, especially in terms of health and mental health, due to their multiple roles, financial poverty, loneliness, and many limitations and this matter determines the importance of using appropriate and effective psychological treatments for them.

This research aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of rational emotive behavioral therapy on death anxiety, interpersonal dependency and mental well-being of household heads females.

The research design was semi-experimental with pre-test - post-test and follow-up with a control group. 30 female heads of households in Isfahan city in 2022 were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly assigned to two control and experimental groups. The experimental group received 10, 90-minute sessions of rational emotive behavioral therapy, and the control group did not receive any intervention. Measurement tools included Templer's Death Anxiety Scale (1970), Hirschfeld's Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (1997), as well as Keyes and Magyarmo's Mental Well-Being questionnaire (2003). The data was analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance with SPSS23.

The results showed that behavior therapy intervention had a significant effect on death anxiety, interpersonal dependency and mental well-being with effect sizes of 0.60, 0.196, and 0.424 (P=0.001), respectively, and the effects of the intervention remained in the follow-up(P<0.05).

It seems that rational emotive behavior therapy can play an important role in improving the psychological characteristics of household heads females, including death anxiety, interpersonal dependency and improving mental well-being. It is suggested that rational emotive behavior therapy should be used in counseling and psychotherapy centers to improve the psychological characteristics of household heads