Effectiveness of schema therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and mindfulness -Based stress reduction on reducing the anxiety and depression in spouses of veterans

Aims: This study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of schema therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and mindfulness-based stress reduction on reducing the symptoms of anxiety and depression in spouses of the veterans. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The statistical population included 44 spouses of the Iranian veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. The subjects were patients with general anxiety disorder who were selected based on the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) and DSM-5-based psychiatric diagnostic interview examination. They were then randomly divided in four groups of equal size (three experimental groups and one control group). Results: Results from multivariate analysis of covariance showed a significant difference between the experimental groups and the control group, and these therapeutic methods could equally reduce anxiety and stress. Also, the other results showed that cognitive-behavioral therapy and schema therapy are effective equally in reducing the depression, but the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction method in decreasing the depression in spouses of the veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder was not significant. Conclusion: Findings of the present study suggested that there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of the three therapeutic methods in decreasing anxiety and stress, however, in case of accompanying depressive symptoms in this group, cognitive-behavioral therapy, or schema therapy should be considered the preferred psychotherapeutic treatments emotional distress.