The Effectiveness of Solution-Focused Therapy on Life Orientation, Mental Health, and Meaningfulness of Life in Patients with Cardiovascular Diseases

Abstract

Background: Taking into account the possible role of psychological factors in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and the fact that they interfere with the biological factors that cause CVDs, this research was designed to evaluate the efficacy of solution-focused therapy on mental health, life orientation, mental health, and meaningfulness of life in patients with CVDs. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental analysis with a pretest-posttest design, follow-up, and a control group. All cardiovascular patients who had referred to the Isfahan Cardiovascular Research Center, Isfahan, Iran, between January and March 2019 and had a history of heart attack or open-heart surgery in the previous month were included in the statistical population of this study. In this study, 30 patients with CVDs wishing to participate in the study were selected using convenience sampling from among patients who had the inclusion criteria and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (each group included 15 patients). Data were collected using Life Orientation Test (LOT), Meaning in Life Questionnaire‎ (MLQ), and General Health ‎Questionnaire (GHQ‎)‎. The collected data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) in SPSS software. Results: The results indicate that there was a significant difference between the solution-focused therapy and control groups in terms of the mean scores of physical symptoms (F = 95.46; P < 0.0001), anxiety (F = 70.36; P < 0.0001), social functional dysfunction (F = 54.11; P < 0.0001), depression (F = 26.70; P < 0.0001), life orientation (F = 22.36; P < 0.0001), and meaningfulness of life (F = 68.21; P < 0.0001). Conclusion: The findings of this study have shown that solution-focused therapy is beneficial for mental health, life orientation, and meaningfulness of life in patients with CVDs and can be used in treatment centers to enhance the status of these patients.