The efficiency of metacognitive therapy on improving physiological (systolic and diastolic blood pressure) and psychological (depression, stress, anxiety) functions in patients with primary hypertension.

The present paper aims to investigate the efficiency of metacognitive therapy in improving physiological (systolic and diastolic blood pressure) and psychological (depression, stress, anxiety) performance in patients with primary hypertension. The research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. However, the statistical population of the study included all men with primary hypertension who had visited the Shams Clinic, located in Bonab city, in the first half of 2020. The research sample consisted of 40 individuals who were selected voluntarily and then randomly assigned to 2 groups of 20 people (experimental group and control group). Furthermore, for the experimental group, metacognition therapy was held in nine sessions of 90 minutes and one session per week. Depression, anxiety, stress scale, and blood pressure measuring device were used to collect the data. multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was applied to analyze the data. The findings showed that, however, metacognitive therapy led to significant differences between groups in anxiety, stress, systolic pressure, and diastolic pressure (P<0.01). In other words, metacognitive therapy led to the reduction of anxiety and stress and the improvement of physiological function (systolic and diastolic blood pressure) in the subjects of the experimental group compared to the control group (P<0.01); although the difference between the mean scores of the two groups in the depression component was not significant (P>0.05). Therefore, as the results, it is suggested to apply this treatment method to improve psychological conditions and consequently reduce the physical problems of individuals with primary blood pressure