The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Cognitive Fatigue Reduction in Women with Multiple Sclerosis with 90 Days of Follow-up

Abstract

Background: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on cognitive fatigue in female patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test and post-test design and three months of follow up performed on three groups of therapy, placebo, and waiting list. Thus, among the female patients with MS referred to the MS Society of Ahwaz, Iran, 41 patients were chosen with the convenience sampling method and divided into therapy (n = 13), placebo (n = 13), and waiting list (n = 14) by random sampling. Findings: All patients completed the Modified Impact of Fatigue Scale (MFIS) in the pretest and posttest stages and after the three-month follow-up period. The results of the mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the interaction between time and therapy can reduce the cognitive fatigue in patients with MS (F = 3.53, P = 0.014, effect size = 0.16, statistical power = 0.84) and this reduction will remain and until the follow-up. Conclusion: According to fatigue as a main and pervasive complaint of this group, the results of this study can be used as an appropriate method to reduce cognitive fatigue in patients with MS.

Keywords

• acceptance and commitment therapy
• cognitive fatigue
• mixed anova
• multiple sclerosis