Iranian Journal of

Background: diabetes causes psychological problems besides physiologic ones for the people. Therefore the purpose of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on mental health of the patients with type 2 diabetes in the city of Isfahan.
Methods: the research method was semi-experimental and its design was pretest, post-test with control group and follow-up stage. The statistical population of included diabetic patients in Isfahan charity diabetes center in 2015. In order to do the study, 30 patients with type 2 diabetes were selected through improbable available and purposeful sampling method and put into experimental and control groups (15 in the experimental and 15 in the control group). The applied instruments were General health questionnaire (GHQ) and demographic questionnaire. After administering pretest, the experimental group received acceptance and commitment therapy during eight ninety-minute sessions in eight weeks while the control group didn’t have such intervention. After finishing therapeutic session, the people in two groups had the post test. After two months the follow-up test was administered. After data collection, the data analysis was conducted via COVARISNCE statistical analysis method through SPSS21 software.
Results: the results showed that there is a significant difference between experimental and control group between pretest and posttest scores (P<0.001). The results revealed that the effect of treatment was stable at the follow-up stage (P<0.001).
Conclusion: considering the significant effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on the mental health of the patients with type 2 diabetes, it is suggested to use this method to increase mental health of these patients.