Effectiveness of mindfulness based on cognitive therapy, on distress tolerance and dysfunctional attitudes in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases

Psychiatric disorders exhist in patients with chronic pulmonary diseases. Psychotherapy of these patients, is less considered and the goal of this study was trying to evaluate the effectiveness of psychotherapy based on mindfulness (which includes facilitation of the experience of stressful physical diseases) on reducing of dysfunctional attitudes and distress tolerance in sample patients.
This applied study conducted on 30 chronic pulmonary patients (control and experimental group) hospitalized in Massih Daneshvari Hospital in the year 2013-2014. Just the experimental group received the psychological intervention of mindfulness based on cognitive therapy in 13 sessions of two hours. Members of both groups responded to questionnaires of demographic information, distress tolerance and dysfunctional attitudes before and after the intervention. Data analyzed by SPSS-21 statistical software and co-variance analysis.
Dysfunctional attitudes, tolerability and aversiveness, tendency to attract the attention, evaluation and potentiality of acceptance changed more in experimental group. Emotion regulation and avoidance changed more in control group.
Considering the effectiveness of mindfulness based on cognitive therapy, it is important to pay attention to psychological problems
of chronic physical patients. Medical treatment does not provide mental and physical readiness in patients to confront with such difficult situations, alone. Thus, overall attention of treatment team to patients is necessary.