The effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction on death anxiety and distress tolerance in patients with type 2 diabetes

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Psychology, Kish International Campus, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Psychology, Islamshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Islamshahr, Iran.

3 Department of Psychology, Garmsar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Garmsar, Iran.

4 Department of Psychology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Introduction: Type 2 diabetes is one of the chronic diseases. These types of diseases cause death anxiety and distress due to their nature. This research was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction on death anxiety and distress tolerance in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Method: The research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. From the statistical population of patients with type 2 diabetes in Tehran in 1401, 35 people were randomly selected and replaced in two experimental and control groups. The research questionnaires included death anxiety (Templer, 1970) and distress tolerance (Simmons and Gaher, 2005). Mindfulness-based stress reduction was applied to the experimental group for ten sessions.
Results: Descriptive findings showed that the scores of the experimental group have a noticeable decrease in death anxiety and a noticeable increase in distress tolerance compared to the scores of the control group. The result of covariance analysis showed that after removing the pre-test effect, the mean post-test scores of the two groups had a statistically significant difference (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Based on the results, mindfulness-based stress reduction was effective in improving death anxiety and distress tolerance in patients with type 2 diabetes, so it can be used as a complementary treatment method alongside medical methods in order to improve psychological status (improving death anxiety and tolerance Anxiety) used by patients.

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