Comparison of the Effectiveness of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy with Short-term Solution-focused Therapy on the Self-efficacy & Resilience of Female Students with Chronic Headache

Introduction: The aim of the present study was to compare the efficacy of ACT with STSFT on pain self-efficacy and resilience of female students with chronic headache. Methods: The method of this study was semi-experimental with pre-test, post-test and follow up with the control group. The population of the study consisted of female students with chronic headache in the secondary school of Tabriz in the academic year 2019-2020. In total, 30 people, They were selected by using simple random sampling and randomly divided into three groups. The experimental groups received their group-specific treatment in 8 and 6 sessions, respectively. Analysis of findings through repeated measures analysis of variance & Bonferroni post hoc test. Results: In the pretest, mean and standard deviation of ACT for pain self-efficacy was (29/10±4/72) & for resilience was (43/20±5/05); in STSFT for for pain self-efficacy was (27/60±4/76) & for resilience was (42/30±4/39); and in the control group for pain self-efficacy was (29/00±4/47) & for resilience was (42/40±5/66). Both treatments compared to the control group, increased pain self-efficacy and resilience in patient after the test (p<0.001). In the follow-up phase, the effect of these two treatments on pain self-efficacy and resilience was lasting (p<0.001). The effect of these two treatments on pain self-efficacy and resilience at posttest and follow-up was not different (p>0.05). Conclusion: These two therapies may reduce the severity of the headache by reducing catastrophic headaches and thus reduce anxiety and fear associated with pain, thus increasing the pain  self-efficacy and resilience of female students with chronic headaches and can be considered a useful preventive strategy.