A Comparison of the Effectiveness of ACT and ER on Health Anxiety and CER of Recovered Covid-19 Patients

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and emotional regulation (ER) on health anxiety and cognitive-emotional representations (CER) of recovered Covid-19 patients. The research method was a semi-experimental pre-test-post-test type with a control group. The research population included all those infected with the Covid-19 who visited health centers. By convenience sampling 75 of these people were selected, replaced randomly assignment in the experiment and control groups. The test of health anxiety and CER was performed in the pre-test and then, the ACT and ER was implemented in 8 sessions of 60 minutes (online). The obtained data were analyzed through the multivariate covariance test. The use of ACT had an effect on health anxiety in the post-test stage, but on reducing the perception of illness in the post-test stage, the test had no effect. ER had an effect on both of them. It seems that the ER had a more effective result than the Act and it can be used in health and clinical centers to improve these patients.

Keywords

• act
• cognitive-emotional representations
• covid-19
• emotion
• health anxiety