The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Group Therapy on Pain in Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain

Background: Most people who suffer from chronic pain are exposed to major physical and mental problems and general health disorders throughout their lives. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment group therapy (ACT) based on pain in patients with chronic low back pain. Methods: This study was a clinical trial and statistical population included 116 patients with chronic low back pain who referred to pain clinic. The McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) was used for data collection with the aim of assessing people's perception of different dimensions (sensory perception of pain, emotional perception of pain, perception of pain assessment, and various pains). 28 out of 116 patients who had the inclusion citeria were selected and randomly divided into a test group and a control group, each with 14 members. Intervention based on ACT was done on test group for eight 1.5-hour sessions. Finally, data were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative tests for descriptive variables and Mann-Whitney test, chi-squared test, Fisher’s exact test, and Wilcoxon test with significant level of P < 0.05. Findings: A high percentage of both groups were women with average age of 40.80 ± 25.10. There was not any significant statistical difference between two groups in terms of pain score and its various dimensions before the intervention. The results of pain score in terms of sensory perception, pain assessment perception, and in general, before and after the intervention in the test group (P = 0.039) and the overall score between the two groups (P = 0.035) were statistically significant. However, there were not any significant statistical changes in pain score and its different dimensions before, after, and three months after intervention in experimental group. Conclusion: It seems that ACT has been able to affect sensory perception, pain assessment, and total score, and it may represent new horizons in clinical treatment and can be used as an effective intervention method