comparison of emotion-focused therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder in patients with chronic low back pain: a short communication

Background: generalized anxiety disorder (gad) is prevalent among chronic pain conditions. the aim of this research was to evaluate the efficiency of emotion-focused therapy (eft) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (cbt) for managing gad in individuals dealing with chronic low back pain (clbp).methods: the study used a semi-experimental approach that included a pre-test, post-test, and control group design. the statistical population included patients suffering from chronic back pain with gad at khatam-ol-anbia hospital in tehran city, iran, from june to august 2022. 45 patients as a sample size were selected through a purposeful sampling method (three groups, 15 for each group). the experimental groups underwent eft for 12 sessions and ten sessions of cbt, 90 minutes once a week, while the control group received no training. in this research, the social anxiety questionnaire for adults (saq-a30) was implemented. multivariate analysis of covariance (mancova) method was conducted for data analysis using spss software.results: both treatments had a significant effect on the treatment of gad. moreover, compared with cbt, eft had a significant advantage (p < 0.05).conclusion: the results suggest that eft, like the cbt, can benefit patients with gad by improving their anxiety levels.