Niloofar Etemadi-Chardah - MSc Student, Department of Psychology, School of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
Bahman Matinpour - Department of Psychology, School of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
Rasoul Heshmati - Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, School of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

Background: Addiction brings about severe and profound physical, psychological and social damages such as divorce, crime, and unemployment. The present study was to investigate the effectiveness of transactional analysis (TA) therapy on addiction intensity of woman patients treated with methadone.Methods: The research design was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest and a control group. The statistical population consisted of all the addicted women who referred to any drug rehabilitation center of Tehran, Iran, in ۲۰۱۶. They were selected using available sampling. Forty addicted patients were placed randomly in both the experimental and control groups. Addiction severity index (ASI) and demographic questionnaires were used. Group therapy using TA approach was executed on the experimental group for ۱۰ sessions, each session for ۲ hours (one session per week).Findings: The results of covariance analysis after controlling pretest showed that the difference between test and control group was significant for three subscales of psychological, drug abuse and alcohol consumption status (P < ۰.۰۰۱). The difference between test and control groups was significant considering the seven-variable centroid (P < ۰.۰۰۱). The difference in dimensions of addiction intensity between the two groups was significant (P < ۰.۰۰۱). Also, analysis of the variables separately showed significant differences in psychiatric condition, drug and alcohol use dimensions (P < ۰.۰۰۱).Conclusion: Based on these findings, it seems that group therapy using TA approach is effective in reducing addiction intensity of woman patients treated with methadone. Therefore, it can be concluded that TA group interventions account for ۷۶% of the changes in psychological status, ۴۳% of the changes in drug abuse status, and ۴۹% of the changes in alcohol consumption status in woman patients under methadone treatment.

Transactional analysis approach, Addiction, Intensity, Methadone