Designing and Examining the Psychometric Properties of the Tendency to Re-Experiencing Abusive Relationships Scale

Background: People with abusive relationships experience mental disorders, irritability, and dysfunction. The aim of this study was to design and psychometrically analyze a tool to assess and detect the desire to re-experience abusive relationships. Methods: This was an exploratory mixed study. In the qualitative stage using grounded theory method, 9 specialists and 8 individuals with abusive relationships referred to psychological clinics in Rasht, Iran, were selected by in-depth semi-structural interviews using purposive sampling method. Then, a questionnaire of the desire to re-experience abusive relationships was developed with 52 questions on the Likert scale. In the quantitative stage which was of a methodological type, psychometric properties were examined using face validity, content validity, and structural validity, as well as internal consistency and stability reliability. Findings: Qualitatively, abusive relationships include "perceived violence, psychological symptoms, unhealthy relationship maintenance strategies, dark personality traits, emotion regulation problems, maintenance factors, family abuse, and self-destructive behaviors". Quantitatively, the tool was valid on the basis of face and content validity. In structural validity using exploratory factor analysis, questions had acceptable correlation (more than 0.3). According to the results of factor analysis, the re-experiencing abusive relationships scale was designed in 18 domains. Tool reliability was obtained 0.87 using internal consistency, and also stability reliability was at an optimal level using test-retest method (0.97). Conclusion: Abusive relationships are a complex, dynamic, continuous, and correlated concept of underlying conditions, maintenance factors, causal conditions, and interventional conditions and include a wide range of individual and personality, cultural, and economic factors. Considering the proper validity and reliability of this tool, it is recommended to use it to detect the desire to repeat the experience for therapeutic interventions

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