Effectiveness of cognitive hypnotherapy on coping self-efficacy and cognitive emotion regulation components in obese women

Introduction: Obesity has become an epidemic on a global scale in recent decades. The effect of psychological factors on eating behaviors should be considered weight loss interventions. Aim: This study was conducted to investigate the effect of cognitive hypnotherapy on coping self-efficacy and adaptive and maladaptive strategies of cognitive emotion regulation in obese women. Method: This was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design, a control group and follow-up that was conducted on obese women in Ahvaz in 2020. Forty women were selected using the convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Data collection tools were Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Checklist for Utilizing Life Experience, Interest & Values, Chesney et al.'s (2006), Coping Self-Efficacy Scale and Garnefski et al.'s (2001) Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. MANOVA, repeated measures ANOVA and SPSS-25 were used to analyze the data. Results: The results showed that cognitive hypnotherapy increased the participants coping self-efficacy (F=29.73, P≥0.001) and this effect continued until the follow-up period (F=6.43, P≥0.03). It did not have a significant effect on adaptive strategies, but it created a significant difference in maladaptive strategies in the follow-up despite its lack of significance in the post-test (F=4.47, P≥0.01). Conclusion: The results revealed that the use of cognitive hypnotherapy is an effective method to increase coping self-efficacy and reduce maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in women with obesity and can be used to improve the psychological problems of these people.