The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Depression, Anxiety, and Stress in Nulliparous Pregnant Women

Abstract

Background: It is necessary to help pregnant women to solve pregnancy problems by identifying the factors affecting depression, anxiety, and stress. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on depression, anxiety, and stress in nulliparous pregnant women.Methods: The research method was semi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population of this study included all pregnant women referred to hospitals in Tehran in 2019, among whom 34 eligible volunteers were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to two groups of acceptance and commitment and control group. The experimental group received acceptance and commitment therapy in 9 sessions of 120 minutes. Data were collected using a depression, anxiety, and stress questionnaire (Lovibond and Lovibond, 1995). Data were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA and SPSS.22 software. The significance level in this study was considered to be 0.05.Results: The results showed that acceptance and commitment therapy intervention significantly decreased depression (p <0.001), anxiety (p <0.001), and stress (p <0.001) in nulliparous pregnant women.Conclusion: It can be concluded that acceptance and commitment therapy was effective in reducing depression, anxiety, and stress in nulliparous pregnant women, and it can be used to improve the psychological problems of pregnant women.