Abstract
BACKGROUND: COVID-19 is an infectious disease that has threatened the physical and mental health of people and in many cases leads to death. The present study investigated the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) in reducing the symptoms of complicated grief, and corona disease anxiety, and improving the quality of life in the survivors of the deceased due to COVID-19. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The research method was an experimental design with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up with a control group and random assignment to the intervention and the control groups. Thirty-eight people who met the study criteria were selected as a sample and assigned to the two intervention and control groups using a simple randomization method (19 people in each group). Measures included the complex grief scale, the coronavirus anxiety scale, and the short form of the World Health Organization quality of life scale. Then, mixed analysis of variance was used to compare the average variables between the two groups. Also, the independent t-test was used to compare the mean quantitative outcomes between the two groups. RESULTS: The results showed that there were significant changes over time between the experimental and control groups (with a small effect coefficient) in complicated grief symptoms (P < 0.05), corona disease anxiety (P = 0.001), and quality of life (P = 0.001). Also, the results of all three variables showed that there were significant differences between pre-test and post-test (P < 0.05) and between pre-test and follow-up (P value < 0.05), but the difference between post-test and follow-up was insignificant. CONCLUSIONS: ACT has significant effects on reducing the symptoms of complicated grief and corona disease anxiety as well as on improving the quality of life in the survivors of the deceased due to COVID-19.