The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy in Reducing Psychological Symptoms, Meta-Worry and Thought Fusion of Multiple Sclerosis Patients

Purpose: Multiple sclerosis is a progressive neurological disease and a cause of many disabilities in individuals. Set of symptoms and the chronic nature of this disease, together impair the mental state of the person and cause awidervariety of psychological symptoms worsening the disease. Therefor, this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive therapy based on mindfulness psychological symptoms, meta-worry and thought fusion in patients suffering from Multiple sclerosis. Materials and Methods: This research is a quasi-experimental research in which pretest, post test and control group designs were used. The population included all patients recognized having multiple sclerosis admitted to the Multiple sclerosis Society of Kermanshah, among whom 24 people were chosenusing random sampling for both experimental and control groups. The instruments of study were the Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Fatigue Severity Scale, Meta-worry Questionnaire, Thought Fusion Inventory and the mindfulnessbased cognitive therapy package. Results: The results of the study showed that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy effectively lowers the rates of depression, anxiety, meta-worry and thought fusion in patients with Multiple sclerosis but is not effective in reducing fatigue severity in these patients. Conclusion: Although drug treatments are effective in relieving the symptoms of Multiple sclerosis, they conversely accompany with a lot of side effects. Thus, the implicit orientation of this study suggests that the variables of depression, anxiety, meta-worry and thought fusion can significantly be improved as the result ofmindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Health authorities in this area should try to consider this therapy as a complementary therapy in the afore mentioned patients.