effectiveness of acceptance-commitment therapy on anxiety and depression among patients on methadone treatment: a pilot study

Background: substance dependence disorder is a psychiatric disorders with different factors that influence its nature, severity, outcome, and treatment options. objectives: this study evaluates the effectiveness of acceptance-commitment therapy (act) to decrease anxiety and depression in patients with opioid dependencies who are undergoing methadone maintenance treatment (mmt). materials and methods: the present study was done in mashhad from 2011-2012. twenty-eight patients (18-50 yr) with opioid dependency who were on mmt were selected using purposive sampling and were divided equally between case and control groups. the case group received 8 sessions of individual psychotherapy with act. the level of depression and anxiety of these patients were measured using the beck depression inventory-ii and beck anxiety inventory before the initiation of act as a pretest, 2 weeks after the termination of act as the posttest, and 3-months after the termination as a follow-up. the collected data was analyzed with spss (ver. 20) using χ2, paired t-test, anova, and manova. results: the pretest-posttest-follow up of anxiety showed no significant differences between the two groups (p = 0.05); however, the case group had lower depression scores in the posttest and follow-up than the control group (p = 0.04). evaluating the results of the case group revealed that depression significantly decreased in the posttest group when compared to the pretest (p = 0.01) and there were no significant decreases in the follow up compared to the pretest (p = 0.34). conclusion: short-term act for opioid dependent patients on mmt are not associated with a significant decrease in the level of anxiety; however, it is associated with a significant decrease in the level of depression. nonetheless, this reduction was not maintained long term.