The effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on quality of life and resilience in people with multiple sclerosis.

Abstract

The present study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on quality of life and resilience in people with MS. The research method was a quasi-experimental design with a pre-test-post-test design and a control group. The statistical population of the study was all people with MS between the ages of 20 and 40 who referred to Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran between 1401 and 1402 and had an active file in the Tehran MS Support Association. Based on the inclusion criteria, 30 people were selected through purposive sampling and randomly assigned to two experimental groups (15 people) and control groups (15 people). The research instruments included the World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale (1998) and the Connor and Davidson Resilience Questionnaire (2003). After the pre-test was conducted on both groups, the experimental group underwent 8 90-minute sessions of compassion-focused therapy (Gilbert, 2007), and no intervention was performed on the control group during this period. Then, both groups were given a post-test. Data analysis was performed using analysis of covariance and SPSS version 26 statistical software. The results of the study showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of quality of life and resilience of participants according to group membership (experimental and control groups) in the post-test phase (P<0.01). Therefore, it can be concluded that compassion-focused therapy had an effect on quality of life and resilience in people with MS.