Comparison of the Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment and Compassion Therapy on Psychological Well-being in Patient with Multiple Sclerosis

Introduction: Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, progressive, and inflammatory disease in the central nervous system that decreases psychological well-being. Regarding the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment and compassion therapy on many psychological characteristics, the present research aimed to compare the efficacy of acceptance and commitment and compassion therapy on psychological well-being in patients with multiple sclerosis. Methods: This study was semi-experimental with a pre-test, post-test, and two-month follow-up design with the control group. The research population was men patients with multiple sclerosis of members of Tehranchr('39')s multiple sclerosis association in 2019. The research sample was 45 people who, after reviewing the criteria for entering to study, were selected by purposive sampling method and by the simple random process with used lottery replaced into three equal groups (each group15 people). The experimental groups were trained in eight sessions of 75minute (one session per week) with acceptance and commitment and compassion therapy methods. The control group was placed on the waiting list for training. Data were collected using the Riff’s psychological well-being scale and analyzed by methods of chi-square, repeated measures, and post hoc Bonferroni test in SPSS-19 software. Results: The findings showed that both methods of acceptance and commitment and compassion therapy in compared to the control group led to increased psychological well-being, and the effects of treatment were maintained in the follow-up stage (P<0.05), but there was no significant difference between the two treatments method in increasing psychological well-being (P>0.05). Conclusions: The results indicated the effectiveness of both acceptance and commitment and compassion therapy on improving psychological well-being in patients with multiple sclerosis and no difference between them. As a result, health professionals and therapists can use both methods and other treatment methods to improve vulnerable groupschr('39') psychological well-being, including patients with multiple sclerosis.