The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Occupational Burnout, Couple Burnout, and Family Resilience Among Nurses

Considering the importance of the nursing profession, which serves as the link between the country’s health and treatment organization and patients, most recent research has aimed to investigate nurses’ career and family problems. However, fewer studies have addressed intervention and treatment approaches in this regard. This research was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of group therapy, based on acceptance and commitment, on occupational burnout, couple burnout, and family resilience among married nurses. The research method was experimental, utilizing a pre-test-post-test design with follow-up phases at one month and three months. The statistical population comprised all the nurses from one of the hospitals in Tehran during the 2020-2022 Coronavirus outbreak. The sample consisted of 24 nurses, 12 in the experimental and 12 in the control group, selected via simple random sampling. The questionnaires used in this research were Meslash’s Burnout Inventory (1981), Pines’s Couple Burnout Measure (1996), and Sixbey’s Family Resilience Assessment Scale (2006). The data were analyzed using a one-way repeated measures Analysis of Variance. The results demonstrated that therapy based on acceptance and commitment significantly reduced occupational and couple burnout and increased family resilience among married nurses (P<0.01). Furthermore, the effects of treatment based on acceptance and commitment were maintained in the follow-up stages (P<0.01). One of the key implications of this study’s findings is that emphasizing acceptance processes and mental focus can help mitigate occupational and couple burnout among nurses. Consequently, it is recommended that policymakers in the healthcare sector consider this therapeutic approach in their decision-making processes.