The Effectiveness of Metacognitive Therapy on Dysfunctional Attitude components in Patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of metacognitive therapy on dysfunctional attitude in patients with generalized anxiety disorder. This was a semi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test design with control group. The statistical population of this study included all psychiatric patients referred to the psychiatric clinic of Zare Psychiatric Hospital in Sari in autumn of 2023 that 32 people were selected based on purposive sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental (16 persons) and control (16 people). The instrument for measuring Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (SPITZ et al., 2002) was Eisman and Beck-26 (1987) dysfunctional attitude questionnaire. The experimental group received 8 sessions of 120 minutes (one session per week) of metacognitive therapy for generalized anxiety disorder and the control group did not receive any intervention. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis of covariance using SPSS software version 27. The results of data analysis showed that after intervention, the effect of metacognitive therapy on reducing dysfunctional attitude in patients with generalized anxiety disorder was significant (p<0.05). The present study showed that metacognitive therapy is effective on dysfunctional attitude and can be used for patients with generalized anxiety disorder.