Investigating the Effectiveness of Emotion-Focused Therapy on Perceived Stress and Alexithymia in Patients With Coronary Heart Disease in Rasht City, Iran

Abstract

Background Coronary heart disease is one of the most common diseases that can affect the mental and bodily health of people. Objective This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy (EFT) on perceived stress and alexithymia in patients with coronary heart disease. Methods This was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group in 2019 on 30 patients diagnosed with coronary heart disease who were referred to Dr. Heshmat Hospital in Rasht City, Iran. The patients were selected by simple random sampling and assigned to 2 groups of 15, including an experimental group and a control group. The assessment tools included the 14-item perceived stress scale (PSS-14) and the 20-item Toronto alexithymia scale (TAS-20), which were completed before and after the intervention. The experimental group received EFT in eight 90-min sessions for two months. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis of covariance and the Bonferroni post hoc test. Results There was a significant difference between the experimental group that underwent EFT and the control group that did not receive any treatment (F2, 25= 170.5, P<0.001, η2P=0.932). Meanwhile, according to the adjusted means, this difference indicates the effectiveness of EFT. Conclusion EFT training can play an important role as an adjunctive and psychological treatment along with drug intervention in reducing the perceived stress and alexithymia.