Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Emotional Self-Regulation and Self-Care to Coronary Artery Disease Patients

Abstract

Emotional self-regulation and self-care can play an important role in reducing the symptoms of coronary heart disease, which is a psycho-physiological disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment-based therapy on emotional self-regulation and self-care of cardiovascular patients in Qazvin. The research method was quasi-experimental of pretest-posttest type with a control group. For this purpose, 30 women with coronary heart disease referred to cardiac treatment centers were selected by availability sampling method and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups, each assigned to 15 people. In this study, Ibanez Self-Regulatory Questionnaire and Jaarsma Self-Care Behavior Questionnaire in patients with heart failure were used. Therapeutic interventions were performed in 8 sessions of 90 minutes on the experimental group, but no intervention was performed on the control group. The results of analysis of covariance showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the scores of emotional self-regulation and self-care. Therefore, it can be concluded that acceptance and commitment-based therapy improves self-care and emotional self-regulation behaviors in patients with coronary artery disease and is recommended as a complementary therapy in related medical centers.

Keywords

• acceptance and commitment-based therapy
• cardiovascular patients
• self-care
• self-regulation