The effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on the illness perception and Psychological Symptoms in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) on the Illness Perception (IP) and Psychological Symptoms (PS) for Patients in primary care with an active symptom of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). The present design is a clinical trial that uses the pre-test and post-test design with a control group. MBCT as an evidence-based psychotherapeutic intervention and Mindfulness-Based Intervention (MBI), is an 8-week course developed for patients with relapsing depression that integrates mindfulness meditation practices and cognitive therapy. This semi-experimental study was conducted using a pretest-posttest and control group. Diagnostic criteria for the diagnosis of patients with RA were all patients with RA who visited the clinic of Jam Rheumatology Centers and met other inclusion criteria in Mashhad in the spring of 2018. Therefore, 28 patients were randomly selected from the diagnostic group. They were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group (14 individuals in each group) and then were post-tested after two months. The data were collected using the revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R) and Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21 scores) which were completed by the participants. The data were analyzed using repeated measures MANOVA. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of pre-test (before MBI) and post-test (after MBI) in the experimental group compared to the control group, and MBCT had a significant effect on the perception of the disease and the psychological syndrome in the experimental group compared to the control group. Therefore, it can be concluded that MBCT is effective on IP and psychological syndrome and can be used as an MBI method to reduce the illness perceptions in people with RA. The future researches with longer pursuing period's efficacy continuation are suggested.