A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Psychological Interventions (focusing on cognitive Interventions) in Reducing the Psychological Problems of People with Epilepsy

Objective: Epileptic patients suffer from different problems and the nature of epilepsy affects various dimensions of an individual’s life such as psychological, physical and social. Thus, the diagnosis of epilepsy for a person is accompanied with some difficulties such as social problems especially in the case of education, marriage and psychological problems such as stress, anxiety and even depression. Nowadays it has been clear that psychological interventions specially those which focus on changing negative attitudes and beliefs may reduce the psychological problems in people with epilepsy meanwhile through affecting their bio-psycho-social dimensions, improve their quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive interventions in reducing the psychological problems of people with epilepsy, by using meta-analysis. Methods: This study used a meta-analysis approach and integrated ten psychological researches (2007-2015) in Iran, Ten of which provided enough outcome information to be included in meta-analysis. They had a sound methodology and were the results of experimental treatments which focus on cognitive interventions. The research tool was Meta-analysis Checklist.Results: The effect size was measured based on Cramer and Hewitt (2009). No statistical software was used in estimating the effect size and the calculations were performed manually. Data analysis showed that the amount of effect size of psychological intervention in reducing the psychological problems of people with epilepsy was higher than average (p˂0/001).Conclusions: As epileptic people usually experience psychological distress which has a very bad effect on the disease and affects the outcome of the treatment, according to our findings psychological interventions can be effective in reducing the psychological problems and improving the performance of people with epilepsy. Therefore this kind of interventions is proposed for these people for increasing their quality of life and well-being.

A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Psychological Interventions (focusing on cognitive Interventions) in Reducing the Psychological Problems of People with Epilepsy Keywords:

Epilepsy , Psychological distress , meta-analysis