Comparison of the Effectiveness of Self-Efficacy-Based Training and Compassion-Focused Therapy on Depression, Self-Care Behaviors, and Quality of Life of Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common gastrointestinal disease. The present study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of self-efficacy-based training and compassion-focused therapy on depression, self-care behaviors, and quality of life (QOL) of patients with IBS. Methods: The present study was a quasi-experimental research with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The statistical population consisted of all patients with IBS referred to Khorshid Hospital in Isfahan city, Iran, between September and November 2019. The study participants were 45 patients with IBS, who were randomly divided into 2 equal-sized groups of intervention and control. The data were collected using the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, 1988), the Self-Care Questionnaire (Alizadeh Aghdam‎, Koohi, & Gholizadeh‎, 2016), and the Quality of Life Scale (Ware & Sherbourne, 1992). The collected data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) in SPSS software. Results: The results indicated that self-efficacy-based training and compassion-focused therapy positively affected depression (P < 0.001), self-efficacy behaviors (P < 0.001), and QOL (P < 0.001) of patients with IBS. However, compassion-focused therapy was more effective in the treatment of depression and the improvement of self-care behaviors and QOL than self-efficacy-based training (P < 0.001). Conclusion: It can be concluded that compassion-focused therapy was more effective in the treatment of depression and the improvement of self-care behaviors and QOL than self-efficacy-based training.