The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Emotional Control of MS Patients in the City of Isfahan

Background and objectives: Cognitive-behavioral therapy is one of the interventions used in the treatment of chronic medical conditions such as MS in recent years. Hence, this study was designed to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy on emotional control of MS patients in the city of Isfahan. Methods: The present study was a semi-experimental research which was conducted by using a pretest-posttest design with the control group. The study population consisted of all members of the MS Society of Isfahan in 2016-2017. Using the available sampling method, 30 subjects were selected and randomly divided into two experimental and control groups (15 subjects for each group). Both groups completed Williams and Chambless emotional control questionnaire as the pretest. After eight sessions (two one-hour sessions per week for four weeks) of cognitive-behavioral therapy, the posttest was performed for the groups. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods, including mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics including univariate covariance analysis in the SPSS 20 software. Results: The study participants included 16 married women and 14 married men. The mean age of the participants in the experimental and control groups was 30.23 ± 7.06 and 29.34 ± 7.15, respectively. The results of the univariate covariance analysis showed that a significant difference in the mean scores of emotional control from the pre-test to the post-test stage between the experimental group and the control group (P = 0.001). Thus, in the experimental group, the mean total score of emotional control in the pretest and post-test phases was equal to 71.66 and 31.33, respectively, while these values in the control group in the pre-test and post-test phases were 67.06 and 62.93, respectively. Also in the experimental group, the scores of four sub-scales of anger, depressed mood, anxiety, and positive emotions revealed significant differences between the posttest stage and the pre-test stage (P =0.001). Therefore, the cognitive-behavioral therapy was effective in improving the emotional control of MS patients. Conclusion: Considering the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy, we recommended the use of this therapeutic method to improve the emotional control of the patients with MS.