Effectiveness of mindfulness and emotion regulation trainings on physical and psychological well-being among chemical weapon victims

Background: Chemical weapon victims are suffering from physical difficulties and psychological trainings may help to decrease these problems. The purpose of this research was to examine the effectiveness of mindfulness and emotion regulation training on physical and psychological well-being in chemical weapon victims.

Methods: An experimental, pre-post and follow-up study designed. Forty seven chemical weapon victims men with low mental health in Sardasht city (North-Western Iran) randomly selected and assigned into three groups: 1-Mindfulness training group 2- Emotion regulation training group and 3- Control group. The first two groups were received mindfulness-based stress eduction training and emotion regulation training respectively, while no training provided for control group. Data was collected using the General Health Questionnaire, and Physical Syndromes Scale.  Analysis of variance with repeated measure was used for analyzing the data.

Results: Results indicated that mindfulness and emotion regulation were significantly improved physical syndromes and mental health in chemical weapon victims. Also, the effectiveness of mindfulness in follow-up scores of physical syndromes and in post-test and follow-up scores of mental health was higher than the base line scores (P<0.01). 

Conclusion: Our findings confirmed effectiveness of mindfulness and emotion regulation on improvement of physical syndromes and mental health in chemical weapon victims. Therefore, mindfulness and emotion regulation training could be suggested for improvement of physical and psychological well-being among chemical weapon victims.