Effectiveness of behavioral activation therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy on depression and rumination as a tool for health promotion on mothers with cerebral palsy children

Mostafa Alirahmi; Sehat Aibod; Akbar Azizifar; Sattar Kikhavani

doi:10.4103/jehp.jehp_1552_22

Effectiveness of behavioral activation therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy on depression and rumination as a tool for health promotion on mothers with cerebral palsy children

J Educ Health Promot. 2023 Aug 31:12:290. doi: 10.4103/jehp.jehp_1552_22. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Mostafa Alirahmi¹, Sehat Aibod², Akbar Azizifar³, Sattar Kikhavani¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Human Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Ilam Branch, Ilam, Iran.
² Psychosocial Injuries Research Center, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran.
³ Department of Psycholinguistics, School of Medicine, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran.

Abstract

Background: Since in most families, mothers are more responsible for taking care of children and they have more responsibility than fathers for monitoring the child; taking care of a disabled child can have a more negative effect on the psychological state of mothers. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effectiveness of behavioral activation therapy (BAT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on depression and rumination on mothers with children with cerebral palsy in the city of Ilam.

Materials and methods: The design of this research was pretest and post-test quasi-experimental with a control group. The research sample was 60 mothers who referred to occupational therapy centers in the city of Ilam in 2022, who were randomly divided into two experimental groups (N = 40 for each) and a control group (N = 20). One of the experimental groups, received behavioral activation group therapy method; and the other received the group therapy method based on acceptance and commitment for eight sessions lasted for 90 minutes in week. Data were collected using the Beck depression questionnaire (BDI-II) and the rumination questionnaire in two stages before the intervention and after the intervention. In this research, covariance analysis was used for data analysis.

Results: The results of covariance analysis showed that behavioral activation therapy and acceptance and commitment-based therapy reduced depression (P < 0.01) and rumination (P < 0.01), and the two experimental groups were compared with the control group in the post-test phase.

Conclusion: It seems that behavioral activation therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy are effective in reducing depression and rumination in the subjects of the present study. Therefore, these treatments are suggested as complementary treatments along with drug treatments to improve psychological symptoms.

Keywords: Acceptance and commitment therapy; behavioral activation; cerebral palsy; depression; rumination.