The Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Resilience among the Wives of Patients with Schizophrenia.

INTRODUCTION: The wives of patients with schizophrenia experience high levels of stress due to their spouses' disease, which leads to certain problems and decreased adaptability and efficiency in them.

AIM: This study investigated the efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) on resilience in schizophrenia patients.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this quasi-experimental study, 40 wives of patients with schizophrenia (20 assigned to experimental group and 20 to control group) whose husbands were kept in rehabilitation centers for mental disorders were enrolled according to convenience sampling. In the experimental group, the therapeutic protocol of MBCT was conducted. Accordingly, the patients were encouraged to process the experiences in a non-judgmental manner as they have been formed, and to change their relationship with and embrace challenging thoughts and feelings. Meanwhile, the control group underwent no intervention. The research instrument was Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. Data were analysed by ANCOVA in SPSS 16.

RESULTS: At post-test, mean resilience score of the experimental group (77.95±4.71) was much higher than that of the control group (71.75±5.81). There was a significant difference in the mean resilience score at post-test between the experimental and control groups (p<0.05).

CONCLUSION: Training MBCT strategies was effective on resilience in the wives of schizophrenia patients. Therefore, this approach can be incorporated into mental health-related interventions for the families of patients with psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia.