Comparison of the Effectiveness of Positive Thinking Group Training and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Psychological Wellbeing and Risky Behaviors of Patients with HIV

Background: the purpose of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of positive thinking group training and acceptance and commitment therapy on psychological well-being and risky behaviors of patients with hiv. methods: a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest research method was used with a control group. accordingly, 45 hiv patients, referring to imam khomeini hospital in tehran, were selected and randomly assigned to groups 1-3, including positive thinking (n=15), act (n=15), and control (n=15) groups, respectively. scales of psychological well-being by ryff (1989) and risk behaviors standard scale (2010) were administered for all three groups (pretest). subsequently, the participants of the experimental groups attended eight 90-minute sessions of group training. the posttest was performed two weeks after training. multivariate and univariate analyses of variance (mancova and ancova) were used to analyze the data. results: the results showed that positive thinking group training was effective in promoting psychological well-being and reducing high-risk behaviors. the results also demonstrated that acceptance and commitment therapy was effective in promoting psychological wellbeing and reducing high-risk behaviors. according to the findings, there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of positive thinking group training and acceptance and commitment therapy on psychological well-being and risky behaviors of people living with hiv (p >0.05). conclusion: both educational interventions (positive thinking and act approach) can increase psychological well-being and reduce high-risk behaviors of hiv+ patients, and there was no significant difference between the two intervention approaches. therefore, both approaches have beneficial effects on improving the quality of life among people living with hiv.