The Effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Pain Acceptance and Catastrophizing of People with Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive chronic disease that can have an effective role on the psychological status of these people due to physical disability and chronic pain. Considering the importance of this issue, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of compassion-focused acceptance and commitment therapy on catastrophizing and acceptance of pain in people with MS.

The statistical population of the present clinical-trial study included all MS patients of Borujerd, Iran, registered in the MS Association in 2022. Fifty participants voluntarily participated in the present research and were randomly divided into two groups; 25 people in each group. Treatment group sessions based on acceptance and commitment with a focus on compassion included 10 90-minute sessions that were held once a week for the intervention group; but the control group did not receive any intervention during this period. In the present study, Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) and Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire – Revised (CPAQ-R) were used. Data analysis was done in SPSS-24 statistical software using repeated measurement variance analysis.

The results indicated that the intervention was significant over time on the variables of pain catastrophizing (F=5.347, p=0.007) and pain acceptance (F=30.446, p=0.001). In fact, the results of the Bonferroni test displayed that in the treatment group, there were changes between pre-test and post-test (p=0.001) and pre-test and follow-up (p=0.001) in the variables of pain catastrophizing and acceptance. There was a significant difference in pain, but no significant difference was observed between the post-test and the follow-up, which indicated the stability of the treatment effect over time. No significant difference was observed in the control group.

In general, it can be concluded that acceptance and commitment therapy with a focus on compassion had an effective role in reducing pain catastrophizing and increasing pain acceptance in MS patients.