ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Original Research

Authors

Abbasi   M. (*)
Khazan   K. (1)
Pirani   Z. (2 )
Ghasemi Jobaneh   R. (3)






(*) Psychology Department, Literature & Human Sciences Faculty, Salman Farsi University, Kazerun, Iran
(1) Counseling Department, Psychology Faculty, University of Social Welfare & Rehabilitation sciences, Tehran, Iran
(2 ) Psychology Department, Human Sciences Faculty, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
(3) Counseling Department, Psychology & Education Sciences Faculty, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Students Affair Deputy, Salman Farsi University, First of Taleqani Street, Ershad Junction, Kazerun, Iran
Phone: +98 (45) 32721517
Fax: +98 (72) 12229080
abbasi@kazeronsfu.ac.ir

Article History

Received:  June  16, 2016
Accepted:  September 14, 2016
ePublished:  November 21, 2016

BRIEF TEXT


… [1]. One of the areas of the veterans` life that may have been affected by war and its long-term consequences is the veterans` emotional-cognitive functions [2-3].

… [4-7]. In the conducted studies, it has been found out that treatment based on acceptance and commitment, is a convenient and efficient therapy. This therapy results in reduction of depression and anxiety in cancer patients [16], increase in self-discipline and self-regulation [8], subjective well-being and mental flexibility in the students [17], reduction of depression in patients with diabetes [18], reduction in social fear [14], and generally improvement of the life quality and psychological health in people.

This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment based therapy on cognitive-emotional functions of the veterans.

This is a quasi-experimental research with pretest-posttest design and control group.

This study was conducted in 2016 among the chemical veterans in Arak City.

To determine the sample size in the experimental method, each group should have at least 15 subjects [19]. However, for samples to be the real representative of the population and for more generalization of the research, 50 (25 for each group) subjects were selected. The subjects were selected according to convenient sampling method and then randomly were assigned to control and experimental groups. Inclusion criteria included: diagnosis of being veteran and having record in the Martyrs Foundation, having mental health, absence of other psychotherapy sessions and having scored one standard deviation below the mean of dependent variable (cognitive-emotional functions). Exclusion criteria were diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, lack of attending in all the held meetings and the lack of full consent to participate in the meetings.

The research instrument was Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale (BDEFS). This questionnaire has been designed to assess cognitive functions in clinical and non-clinical population. This 89-item scale is a self-report instrument that its response is on a four grade Likert Scale (from never to always). The scale consists of five subscales that measures inadequacies in five cognitive functions of time management, self-organization/problem solving, self-control, Self-motivation, and emotional self-regulation. Each subscale score is achieved by summation of the questions in that subscale. Because of the variability of the number of the questions, their range of scores is different in the subscales. However, in general, high scores in each subscale indicates greater impairment of that cognitive function. Also for this scale and its subscales, norm table has been set based on the age and gender. This tool has two forms of self-report and other-report. Cronbach`s alpha for the total scale is 0.91 and for the subscales of time management, self-organization/problem-solving, self-control, self-motivation and emotional self-regulation is 0.94, 0.95, 0.93, 0.91, and 0.94 respectively. Also, the test-test reliability coefficients for the total score is 0.84 and for the subscales of self-time-management, self-organization/problem-solving, self-control, self-motivation, and emotional self-regulation respectively [20, 21]. Acceptance and commitment therapy [22] was conducted in 10 45-minute sessions and explanations and teachings of this approach about mental flexibility, psychological acceptance, psychological awareness, cognitive screening, self-visualization, personal story, exploring the values and committed action were presented to the subjects (Table 1). Data was analyzed with SPSS 23 statistical software. For assessing the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment based therapy (as independent variable) on cognitive-emotional functions of the veterans (as dependent variable), Multivariate Analysis of Covariance was used.

The mean age of subject in the experimental and control groups were 54.0±7.4 and 53.7±8.7 years respectively. By Controlling the effects of pre-test, acceptance and commitment based therapy improved the variables of self-regulation (p=0.02), self-motivation (0.008), emotional self-regulation (p=0.047), and cognitive-emotional function (p=0.001). However, this therapy had no significant effect on the variables of time management and problem-solving (p>0.05; Table 2).

Acceptance and commitment based therapy can improve cognitive-emotional functions in veterans. This finding is consistent with previous researches [15, 18, and 23]. … [24-26].

It is suggested that in the future studies, the amount and type of the veterans` interpersonal and family problems be controlled so that the relationship between these interpersonal interactions and the improvement or occurrence of emotional problems in the veterans be investigated. On the other hand, selecting the cases of the veterans with the same kind of problems and the same severity of the problems resulted from the injury is recommended. Also, it is suggested that veterans are trained in the domains of familiarity with the emotions and cognitive functions, their role in the behavior, interaction, and emotional problems, and making veterans familiar with the cases such as screening the cognition, emotion, and behavior of individual integrity ( to avoid blaming yourself and others of personal or interpersonal negative emotional experiences).

Among the limitations of this study was the lack of the control of interpersonal and family problems that these interactions can lead to the emotional problems in the veterans and the other limitations was lack of similarity in the severity and type of the injuries in the subjects.

Teaching the acceptance and commitment-based treatment improves the veterans’ cognitive-emotional functions.

The Researchers appreciate all the Arak male veterans who cooperated sincerely as the subjects of this study.



All the veterans in this study had complete informed consent for participating in this study.

Non-declared

TABLES and CHARTS

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