Investigating the Effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Seizure Frequency and Self-management Behaviors of Patients with Intractable Epilepsy

Abstract Introduction: The present study was conducted with an eye on investigating the effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on seizure frequency and self-management behaviors of patients with intractable epilepsy. Methodology: Quasi experimental design was adopted in which pre-test, post-test, and control group were deployed to gather data from patients with epilepsy visiting specialty neurology clinics of Khorramabad. In so doing, 24 patients with epilepsy (experimental, N=12; control group, N=12) were selected based on convenience sampling. Subsequently, during a period of 10 sessions (once in a week lasting 90 minutes), they were treated through acceptance and commitment therapy. Data were collected by means of Dilorio’s (1994) epilepsy self-management questionnaire (ESM) and checklist of the number of seizures recorded by the patients. Moreover, data were analyzed in the SPSS-23 using ANOVA and MANOVA.   Results: The results discovered that acceptance and commitment therapy has a meaningful and positive impact on decreasing the seizure frequency (P<0/001) and increasing the self-management behaviors (P<0/001). Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, acceptance and commitment therapy, which is one of the therapies of the third wave, as a non-invasive and affordable therapy can have a considerable efficacy on recovery of self-management behaviors as well as decreasing the frequency of seizure in patients with epilepsy.