An Investigation of the Effects of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Groups on the Cognitive Strategies of Emotion Regulation and Self-Control in Coronary Heart Disease Patients

Coronary heart diseases are amongst the most common and severe diseases; also, the prevalence and emergence of these diseases are largely affected by psychological and social factors. The present study was conducted in order to investigate the effects of acceptance and commitment therapy in groups on the cognitive strategies of emotion regulation and self-control in patients with cardiovascular diseases. The present work is a quasi-experimental research with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The statistical population of this study included all patients with coronary heart disease aged 35-55 years who referred to hospitals, health centers, and cardiovascular clinics of Isfahan in the spring of 2018. Among these patients, 30 patients were selected based on the inclusion criteria of the study using a convenience sampling method. They were then divided randomly into two experimental and control groups, with 15 participants in each group. The patients in the experimental group participated in eight 60-minute sessions of the Hayes’ Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) (2002). However, no intervention was applied to the control group. The participants responded to the research questionnaires in two phases. The questionnaires included the Garnefski’s Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) (2001) and the Tangji’s self-control questionnaire (2004). The research data were analyzed using covariance analysis in SPSS 24. The results of the covariance analysis indicated that the group-based acceptance and commitment therapy exerted a significant effect on the total score of the two strategies, i.e., the positive strategy of the cognitive regulation of emotions and the negative strategy of the cognitive regulation of emotions (p<0.05). However, no significant difference was observed in terms of self-control (p> 0.05). The findings of the present study showed that the treatment intervention resulted in increased use of acceptance strategies, positive re-focus, and re-focus, as well as reduced use of rumination and other-blaming strategies in cardiovascular patients in Isfahan.