Comparison of Effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Affect Control (Anger, depressed mood, anxiety, positive emotion) of Women with Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy on Affect Control (Anger, depressed mood, anxiety, positive emotion) of Women with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The research method was quasi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design and follow-up with a control group. The statistical population of the study included all female patients with MS who were members of the Golestan Province MS Association in 2019. The sample consisted of 60 eligible patients and volunteers who participated in the study and were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and one control group. The first experimental group received compassion-focused treatment and the second group received acceptance and commitment-based treatment. The Emotion Control Scale of Williams et al. (1997) was used to collect data. Data were analyzed using Bonferroni repeated measures analysis of variance in SPSS-24 software. The results showed that both treatments were effective in controlling the emotions of women with MS (P<0/01), comparison of means also shows that the mean scores of emotion control and its components in the CFT group are higher than in the ACT group, which indicates the greater effectiveness of treatment focused on compassion. According to the findings of this study, it can be concluded that compassion-based therapy is more effective than acceptance-based therapy due to direct intervention and addressing the content of emotions.

Comparison of Effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Affect Control (Anger, depressed mood, anxiety, positive emotion) of Women with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Keywords:

emotion control , compassion-focused therapy , Acceptance and commitment-based therapy , Multiple sclerosis