Comparing the Effectiveness of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction and Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy in Reducing Intolerance of Uncertainty and Depression in Women with Fibromyalgia

Abstract

Background: Patients with Fibromyalgia, in addition to widespread pain, often complain of fatigue, sleep disorders, cognitive impairment, anxiety, and depression. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction and intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on intolerance of uncertainty and depression in women with Fibromyalgia.Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest control design and a three-month follow-up. The study population included all women with Fibromyalgia visiting the rheumatology clinic at Hazrat-e Rasool-e Akram Hospital, in Tehran, Iran, in 2021. A total of 36 patients were recruited using purposive sampling and assigned to three groups, two experimental groups and one control group (n=12 patients in each group). The experimental groups 1 and 2 received mindfulnessbased stress reduction therapy and intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy, respectively, in eight 120-minute sessions (one session every week). Meanwhile, the control group did not receive psychotherapy intervention during this period. The Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale and the Beck Depression Inventory were used for data collection. The repeated measures ANOVA were used for analyzing the data in SPSS version 25. The significance level of the research was set at α=0.05.Results: The results indicated that both mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy and intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy effectively reduced intolerance of uncertainty and depression in Fibromyalgia patients (P<0.001). However, intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy proved to be significantly more effective than mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy; this difference was observed through the follow-up period (P<0.001).Conclusion: Mindfulness-based stress reduction and intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy were effective and practical methods for reducing intolerance of uncertainty and depression. It could be therefore recommended that psychotherapists and counselors employ these approaches in order to reduce depression and intolerance of uncertainty in women with Fibromyalgia.

Keywords

• uncertainty
• depression
• psychotherapy
• fibromyalgia
• women