Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy on Guilt Feeling Among Family Caregivers of Patients With Alzheimer’s Disease

Objective: This study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral group therapy on guilt feeling among family caregivers of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Methods: This research was a quasi-experimental study where in the pre-test and post-test control group design was employed. The statistical population of this study consisted of the female family caregivers of the Alzheimer’s patients who were referred to the Iran Alzheimer’s Association in 2012. Among this population, 32 volunteers were selected via convenience sampling method and were then randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups. The participants of both groups filled in the guilt feeling questionnaire and caregiver guilt questionnaire in both the pre-test and post-test phases. The therapy program lasted for 14 sessions. Multivariate regression analysis and covariance analysis were used to analyze the data. Results: The results showed that the levels of overall guilt and caregiver guilt had significantly decreased in the experimental group after the exposure of this group to cognitive-behavioral group therapy as compared to the pre-test and control group (P 0.01). Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, cognitive-behavioral group therapy was found to reduce the overall guilt and caregiver guilt among the family caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. This therapeutic method is recommended as a cost-effective treatment to be used by family caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients.