Efficacy of Dialectical Behavior Therapy on Stress, Resilience and Coping Strategies in Irritable Bowel Syndrome Patients

Background Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common gastrointestinal disorder that have considerable psychological features.Objectives This research aimed to determine the efficacy of dialectical behavioral therapy on stress, resilience and coping strategies of IBS patients.Methods The study was quasi-experimental that including two intervention and control groups. Fifty-two IBS patients who met this diagnosis- according the Rome III criteria- were selected and assigned to two experimental and control groups with 26 IBS patients in each group. The dialectical behavioral therapy-according to Moonshine s manual- was conducted in 8 weekly sessions in a gastroenterology clinic in Isfahan. The questionnaires of stress, resilience and coping strategies were completed as the pretest, post-test and follow-up. Data were analyzed with SPSS.20.Results Results of multivariate analysis of variance showed that dialectical behavioral therapy had a significant effect in reduction of post-test mean scores of emotional coping strategies (P Conclusions Dialectical behavioral therapy could be useful to improvement of psychological status of IBS patients, but it needs longer therapeutic period for more persistent effects.