The efficacy of cognitive-behavior group therapy on health-related quality of life, health anxiety and depression in patients with diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome

Objectives: the purpose of this study, was to determine the efficacy of cognitive–behavioral group therapy in health–related quality of life, in irritable bowel syndrome (ibs) patients. methodology: 32 ibs patients who received this diagnosis, according to the rome ii criteria, were selected and assigned randomly to either the experimental or the control group with 16 ibs patients in each group. the experimental group received 8 weekly cbgt sessions in the department of gastroentology in a general hospital in the central city. the quality of life inventory (qol) and beck depression inventory (bdi) were used as the pretest, post-test and follow-up. the follow-up tests were conducted two months after the last intervention session. results: results of multivariate analysis of covariance(mancova) showed that the mean scores of health–related quality of life and depression , in the experimental group, was significantly lower than the control group in post-test (p=0.004, p=0.023), but there wasn’t significant difference in follow-up. results also showed that the scores of health anxiety in experimental group was significantly lower than the control group in post-test (p=0.007) and follow–up (p=0.02). conclusion: cbgt could be an effective and selective psychotherapy to improve hrqol and degree depression and health anxiety of ibs patients, but in this therapy, in addition to automatic thoughts, we should also consider to core beliefs and underlying assumptions to enhancement the efficacy of intervention.