Comparing the Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Recovery-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on Anxiety, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation, and Quality of Life in Patients with Bipolar Disorder

Introduction: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic psychiatric disorder that accompanies anxiety, difficulties in emotion regulation (DER), and low quality of life. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) and recovery-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (RfCBT) on anxiety, difficulties in emotion regulation, and quality of life in patients with BD. Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental research conducted in the form of pretest-posttest with control group. Thirty six five volunteer BD patients for participation in this study were included randomly in two experimental groups and one control group. The first experimental group (n=12: females=4, males=8) received the MBCT and the second experimental group (n=12: females=4, males=8) received the RfCBT, and the control group (n=12: females=5, males=7) received no intervention and was placed in the waiting list. Participants completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) in pre- test and post-test. Data were analyzed using covariance analysis by SPSS-22. P 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The results of this study showed that both MBCT and RfCBT interventions significantly reduced anxiety (p 0.001) and DER (p 0.001) and increased quality of life (p 0.001) in BD patients, but no significant differences were observed between the two interventions regarding the degree of effectiveness on these variables (p 0.05). Conclusion: The findings suggested that both MBCT and RfCBT interventions were effective on reduction of anxiety and DER as well as increasing quality of life.