Effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on body image flexibility and body awareness in patients with psychosomatic disorders: a randomized clinical trial

摘要

Objective: The aim of this research was to examine the effectiveness of the acceptance and commitment therapy(ACT) for body image flexibility and body awareness in these patients.Methods: A randomized clinical trial was conducted at Kashan University of Medical Sciences clinics inKashan, Iran, from December 1, 2017 to March 30, 2018. A sample of 75 patients with psychosomatic disorderswas selected by convenience sampling. The selected patients were randomly divided into three 25-membergroups. The experimental group received medicinal treatment combined with the (ACT). The active controlgroup received the usual treatment plus psycho education in general psychology, and the treatment group solelyreceived the medicinal treatment usually used in the treatment centers. The results were obtained using thefollowing scales in the pretest and posttest phases and the two-month follow-up: the demographic questionnaire;Shields’ body awareness questionnaire; and Sandoz’s body image flexibility questionnaire. The data wereanalyzed using the descriptive statistics tests (mean and standard deviation) and the repeated measures analysis ofvariance and chi-square tests in IBM-SPSS version 21.Results: There was no significant difference among the three groups in terms of body image flexibility, bodyawareness, somatic symptoms, and demographic variables. The results of the posttest and follow-up examinationssuggested that the ACT group more effectively and significantly improved body image flexibility and bodyawareness as compared to both of the control groups (p=0.02).Conclusions: The ACT successfully improves body image flexibility and body awareness in patients withpsychosomatic disorders.Clinical trial registration: This research was registered at the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials(http://www.irct.ir) with the IRCT ID: IRCT2017092532057N2.Funding: Research and Technology Department of Kashan University of Medical Sciences funded the study(Ref: 96053).