The effect of Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in Anxiety sensitivity, Deficits in emotional processing and Distress tolerance of Nurses with Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Introduction: Generalized anxiety disorder is one of the anxiety disorders that has caused many problems in the field of health for nurses. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in anxiety sensitivity, deficits in emotional processing and distress tolerance of nurses with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. Methods: The research was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population in this study included all nurses living in Karaj city in 2022. 30 nurses suffering from generalized anxiety disorder were selected as a sample by convenience sampling and randomly replaced in two experimental (15 people) and control (15 people) groups. During eight 90-minute sessions, the experimental group was subjected to mindfulness-based cognitive therapy 2 days a week, but no intervention was performed on the control group. Both groups (control and experimental) responded to the emotional processing scale-revised (EPS-R), anxiety sensitivity index (ASI) and distress tolerance scale (DTS) before and after the intervention. To analyze the data, multivariate analysis of covariance was used using SPSS software version 23. Results: There was a significant difference between the average post-test scores of the intervention group and the control group, so that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy significantly led to a decrease in anxiety sensitivity and deficits in emotional processing and an increase in distress tolerance in the intervention group (P>0.01). Conclusions: According to the obtained results, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, on the one hand, by implementing techniques that are related to the component of mindfulness, reduces anxiety sensitivity in nurses, and on the other hand, by changing patterns Cognitive and identification of cognitive errors leads to an increase in the ability to control thoughts and emotions and to improve the way of dealing with negative emotions, which in turn improves the emotional processing and distress tolerance of nurses with generalized anxiety disorder. Therefore, it is recommended as an effective intervention to reduce the cognitive and emotional problems of nurses with generalized anxiety disorder.