Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

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Foroutan S, Heidari A, Asgari P, Naderi F, Ebrahimi Moghaddam H. Comparison of the Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy on improvement of symptoms of patients with general anxiety disorder. MEJDS 2018; 8 :74-74
URL: http://jdisabilstud.org/article-1-892-en.html

Background and Objective: General anxiety disorder (GAD) is the most prevalent chronic anxiety disorders in clinical centers and general population. There are several treatment methods for this disorder that have different challenges ,for example cognitive-behavior therapy is selective treatment for anxiety disorders but it is not improvement and has not patients efficiency in general anxiety disorder. Furthermore, study on the effectiveness of new treatment called third wave that include behavioral and cognitive interventions (known as post modernism), seem necessary in treatment of general anxiety disorder. Acceptance and commitment therapy and functional analytic psychotherapy are two method from third wave that include behavioral and cognitive interventions. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to comparison of the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy and functional analytic psychotherapy in decrease anxiety, depression and increase psychological flexibility and communication skill in patients with general anxiety disorder.
Methods: In this study, a quasi-experimental designed with pre-posttest and a four-month follow up was used. For this purpose, 36 subjects were selected via accessible sampling from the clientele who referred to psychological clinics. They were randomly divided into three groups. Two experimental groups were, acceptance and commitment therapy (n=12) and functional analytic psychotherapy (n=12). Both groups received 10 two-hour treatment sessions once a week. Control group had 12 patients participated (waiting list). In order to assess the severity of GAD, depression, communication skill and psychological flexibility different questionnaires included: anxiety disorder questionnaire (GAD-7) (a=87%, r=76%), Beck depression inventory (BDI) (a=87%, r=74%), communication skill questionnaire (CSQ) (r=69.8%) and acceptance and action questionnaire (AAQ) (a=87%, r=80%) were used. Statistical data were analyzed from repeated measures analysis of variance and paired comparison Bonferroni.
Results: Comparison of the treatment groups suggested that there was significant difference between acceptance and commitment therapy group with waiting list group in all scales except in depression variable, but in follow up was not significant (p=0.01). In addition, there was significant difference between functional analytic psychotherapy group and waiting list group in all scales and this difference maintains in follow up (p=0.01). Comparison between experimental groups (acceptance and commitment therapy with functional analytic psychotherapy) in posttest, indicates that there was not significant difference between two groups, except in depression variable, but in follow up was not significant different between acceptance and commitment therapy and functional analytic psychotherapy in anxiety, depression, communication skill and psychological flexibility variables (p<0.01). Based on the results of this study, in posttest, functional analytic psychotherapy was more effective in decrease of depression. However, both acceptance and commitment therapy and functional analytic psychotherapy showed significant changes in general anxiety disorder symptoms. 
Conclusion: Attention to efficacy of two approach (acceptance and commitment therapy, and functional analytic psychotherapy) on improvement of patients with general anxiety disorder under basic anxiety symptoms, this research not only provided an empirical support for functional analytic psychotherapy in treatment of general anxiety disorder but also can be useful for another anxiety disorders. This study propose to combine two approach in treatment of anxiety disorder.