Comparing the effect of the training of cognitive behavioral coping skills and mindfulness based relapse prevention in reducing the psychological symptoms of people with substance dependency under methadone maintenance treatment

Introduction: Psychological interventions are the one of requirements for effective treatment of substance users during abstinence period. Aim: The aim of this study was comparing the effectiveness of the training of cognitive behavioral coping skills and mindfulness based relapse prevention in reducing psychological symptoms of people with substance dependency under methadone maintenance treatment. Method: This study was conducted via experimental method with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. People with substance dependency referring to Ardabil centers of addiction treatment in the second half of 2017 comprised statistical population. The sample was sixty people, selected by cluster sampling and was assigned randomly to three 20 member groups of cognitive-behavioral coping skills; mindfulness based relapse prevention and control group. SCL -90-R was used to gather data in two pretest and posttest stages. The collected data were analyzed by multivariate covariance and bonferrony posthoc test. Results: The results showed that there are significant differences between the scores mean of three groups in the variables of somatic complaints, depression, aggression and psychosis. The results of boferrony test also showed that there are not significant differences between two experimental groups in somatic complaints, depression and aggression. But, the mindfulness-based relapse prevention alone was effective on reducing the psychosis. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that the using of cognitive-behavioral coping skills training and mindfulness-based relapse prevention can be useful psychological intervention for reducing psychological symptoms of people with substance dependency.