Effectiveness of compassion focused therapy on stress and headache in patients with tension-type headache

Abstract

Introduction: Tension headache accounts for roughly80% of all headache cases and is associated with significantreductions in productivity with significant socioeconomiccosts. The purpose of this study was to investigatethe effectiveness of compassion-focused therapyon stress, anger and headache in women with tensionheadache.Method: The research method was semi-experimental,with pretest-posttest design and control and experimentalgroups. The study population consisted of all patientswith tension headaches in Isfahan who referred to neurologyclinics in 1397, of whom, 34 patients were selectedby available sampling method and then randomly locatedinto 2 experimental group (17 patients) and controlgroup (17 patients). The intervention included 8 sessionsof 90 min compassion focused therapy. All participantswere assessed by Harry Stress Questionnaire (HSQ) HarryRayan, Buss Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ) Buss& Perry; and Blanchard Headache Diary (BHD), before andafter the intervention. Result: Data analysis was done bymultivariate analysis of covariance and using SPSS version24. The finding showed a significant difference betweenthe mean post-test scores of duration and severity ofheadache in people with tension headache and stress insubjects with tension headache in the experimental andcontrol groups.Conclusion: The results of this study showed that compassion-focused therapy can have an impact on the reductionof stress and headache in people with tensionheadache.