Abstract

Background: In addition to the physical effects caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the disease is also associated with various psychological problems that have required research and clinical attention. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of in-person and telehealth cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in people who have recovered from COVID-19. Methods: This study was a randomized controlled trial with a pre-post design, a control group, and a three-month follow-up. The statistical population consisted of patients who had recovered from COVID-19 in Tehran between 2022 and 2023. From this population, 45 patients were selected using a convenience sampling method and randomly divided into three groups: An in-person CBT group, a telehealth CBT group (15 patients in each), and a control group (15 patients). The in-person CBT group received 11 sessions, while the telehealth CBT group received 12 sessions. Research instruments included the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and the Resilience Scale (RS). The data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance. Results: The results showed that although both treatments led to improvements in psychological distress (P < 0.01) and resilience (P < 0.01), the effectiveness of in-person CBT was greater and statistically significant. The effect sizes for depression, anxiety, stress, and resilience were 0.37, 0.38, 0.44, and 0.64, respectively. Conclusions: The results indicate that both in-person and virtual CBT lead to improvements in psychological distress and resilience in patients with a history of COVID-19, compared to the control group. However, the improvement rate was higher for in-person CBT compared to the virtual group. In-person CBT led to significant improvements in both psychological distress and resilience.

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