the effect of metacognitive therapy on cognitive-attentional syndrome and low cognitive confidence among female students during 2015 and 2016

Background: generalized anxiety disorder is chronic and can be continued. the present study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of metacognitive therapy on cognitive-attentional syndrome and low cognitive confidence among female students of shahid chamran university of ahvaz, who had generalized anxiety disorder. methods: this was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest and posttest and a control group. the statistical population included all female students of shahidchamranuniversity of ahvaz,whowere invited to participate in the present study by a phone call. first, for an initial diagnosis of the disorder, the generalized anxiety disorder scale was given to the students. then, those individuals with a high score in anxiety questionnaire (cut-off point: 10 and above) underwent a structured clinical interview, and 28 individuals with generalized anxiety criteria were selected. the test group underwent ten 90-minute sessions of wells metacognitive therapy. the questionnaire of cognitive-attentional syndrome and cognitive trust was used as a measurement tool in the pretest and the posttest. data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis variance test. results: multivariate variance analysisshowedthat themeanvalue of cognitive-attentionalsyndromeandlow cognitive confidence in the test group significantly reduced compared to the control group. conclusions: the findings revealed that mct reduces the studied variables and indicated the effectiveness of meta-cognitive therapy on generalized anxiety.