Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: Bereavement care is an essential component of the work of a diverse range of health and social care professionals. Bereaved people may feel particularly isolated and unable to access the benefits of social support. Bereaved people experience a heightened sense of grief through social isolation and a lack of appropriate bereavement care. Adolescents with a history of bereavement experience many psychological problems, which affect their personal and professional lives. Therefore, addressing their psychological problems seems very necessary. Adolescents with a history of bereavement have behavioral problems, depression, and challenges in emotion regulation. A variety of treatments have been used to manage the problems of adolescents with a history of bereavement. A newer, empirically supported behavioral therapy that focuses on improving psychological well–being is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This therapy involves mindful attention, values–based acceptance, and action strategies for coping with difficult experiences. So, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on the cognitive emotion regulation of adolescents with a history of bereavement.
Methods: This quasi–experimental interventional study employed a pretest–posttest design with a control group. The statistical population consisted of adolescents with a history of bereavement aged 12 to 18 years living in Yazd City, Iran, who were referred to psychiatric clinics in Yazd. Thirty eligible volunteers from this population entered the study, and 15 were randomly assigned to the intervention group and 15 to the control group. The inclusion criteria for the subjects in the study were as follows: having a history of bereavement of parents, an age range of 12 to 18 years, and not using other treatment methods such as medication and psychotherapy. The exclusion criteria for the subjects in the study were absence from a treatment session and failure to complete the questionnaire during the study. An initial assessment of each subject was conducted on the first day and lasted 1.5 hours. Information such as the subject's family history of disease and treatments received so far was also recorded in the subject's file. Before treatment, the sample subjects signed a voluntary consent form to participate in the study, and assurances were given that their information would remain confidential. The variable scores of cognitive regulation of emotion were compared using the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2007) across two time periods: before and after the treatment. For the experimental group, eight 90–minute sessions of group acceptance and commitment therapy were conducted. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 17 software. In the descriptive statistics section, the mean and standard deviation of the scores related to the variables were extracted. Then, in the inferential statistics section, data analysis was performed using the analysis of covariance statistical test. The significance level of the tests was set at 0.05.
Results: The results showed that in the posttest, there was a significant difference in the mean scores of the cognitive emotion regulation variable between the intervention group, which received group acceptance and commitment therapy, and the control group without any intervention (p<0.001). Based on the effect size results, 67% of the difference between the intervention group and the control group in the cognitive emotion regulation variable was due to the implementation of group acceptance and commitment therapy.
Conclusion: According to the results of the study, group acceptance and commitment therapy improves cognitive emotion regulation in adolescents with a history of bereavement. Therefore, this therapy can be used as a complementary approach to enhance cognitive and emotional regulation in these individuals.