Effectiveness of Compassion Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Psychological Flexibility and Psychological Distress in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis

Objectives: This study aims to determine the effectiveness of compassion-focused Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on psychological flexibility and psychological distress in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods: This was an experimental study with pre-test-post-test, follow-up, and control group design. The statistical population included all multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, who were a member of the Khuzestan MS Society. From this population, 50 patients were selected by the simple random sampling method. Then, 32 patients were randomly selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and divided into two groups, namely the control group (n=16) and the experimental group (n=16). The experimental group was randomly divided into two groups of 8 patients. The experimental group received ten 90-min sessions of compassion-focused ACT. The participants answered the open and engaged state questionnaire and psychological distress scale. The obtained data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) in the SPSS software, v. 24. Results: The results of MANCOVA showed a significant difference between the experimental and the control group in psychological flexibility and psychological distress in the posttest and follow-up stages. Conclusion: The compassion-focused ACT is effective in increasing psychological flexibility and reducing psychological distress in patients with MS.