The Effectiveness of Metacognitive Therapy on Positive and Negative Affect and Brain/Behavior Systems of Patients with Migraine Headaches Referring to Clinics and Health Centers in Ahwaz, Iran

Abstract

Background: The present study investigated the effects of metacognitive therapy (MCT) on the positive and negative affect and brain/behavioral systems (BBSs) of patients with migraine headaches referred to clinics and medical centers in Ahwaz city, Iran.Methods: The participants consisted of 30 men and women with migraine selected using convenience sampling method and based on the diagnosis of a neurologist and the initial interview. The Gray-Wilson Personality Questionnaire‎ (GWPQ) and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) ‎were used in the pretest for all patients. The participants were randomly divided into the experimental (n = 15) and control groups (n =15). Metacognitive intervention was performed during 8 weekly sessions in the experimental group. The questionnaires were again administered to both experimental and control groups in the posttest to determine the effect of the treatment intervention. In this study, multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was used to analyze the data in SPSS software. The significance level to test the hypotheses was considered as 0.05.Results: The individual analysis of the variables illustrated that MCT is effective on negative affect and components of escape war in BBSs and there is a significant correlation between them.Conclusion: It can be concluded that MCT is effective on positive and negative affect and BBSs of patients with migraine headaches.