The Effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Depression and Anxiety in Patients With Hypertension

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Failure to treat hypertension often leads to fatal complications; thus, there is an urgent need to develop and expand effective psychological interventions in this respect. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on depression and anxiety in patients with hypertension. Methods This was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test, post-test and a control group design. In total, 24 patients with hypertension in Birjand city, Iran, in the second half of 2020 participated in this research. The study subjects were selected from the eligible subjects who volunteered to participate in the study. Besides, they were chosen by convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups (n=12/group). The experimental group participated in eight ACT sessions developed by Hayes et al. (2011); however, the control group remained on the waiting list. Data collection tools were the Beck Depression Inventory -Second Edition (BDI-II) (2000) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI;Beck et al., 1988). The collected data were analyzed in SPSS using repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at the significance level of P=0.05. Results The current study results revealed that ACT was effective in reducing depression (P<0.01) and anxiety (P<0.01) in patients with hypertension; these results remained consistent until the follow-up step (P<0.01). Conclusion The obtained data indicated the effectiveness of ACT in reducing depression and anxiety in patients with hypertension. Thus, this intervention can be used as a complementary therapy to improve psychological problems in patients with hypertension.

Effectiveness of rational emotive behavior therapy in reducing depression among undergraduate medical students

“…[51] Additionally, a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study reported that REBT was effective in lowering depression in patients with hypertension during the posttest and follow-up period. [52] In another previous study among 23 education undergraduates with the major depressive disorder at a Nigerian university, the authors found that REBT was successful in lowering depression ratings among the students. [53] More so, some researchers conducted a study to determine the cost-effectiveness and cost-utility of REBT in treating depression among a Romanian sample of 170 depressed clients.…”

Reducing Anxiety with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in Hypertensive Clients

“…(McCracken et al, 2013) meneliti penerapan terapi menggunakan konsep penerimaan, komitmen, dan tindakan dengan model singkat menunjukkan kelompok yang diberikan intervensi menunjukkan adanyan penurunan kecacatan, penurunan depresi dan kecemasan serta adanya penerimaan kondisi kesehatan. Pengaruh lain ACT yaitu membantu dalam manajemen diri pasien hipertensi, memperbaiki masalah psikologis, mengurangi sensitifitas kecemasan dan meningkatkan kualitas hidup pasien (Miri et al, 2021;Saibi et al, 2020;Yagi et al, 2022). ACT membantu dalam mengatur emosi kognitif dan mengidentifikasi ancaman yang dirasakan saat ini, sehingga dapat langsung mengatasi permasalannya (Zargar et al, 2019).…”