Journal of

Background and Aim: Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus do not have a flexible approach against stress and have difficalty regulating their cognitive skills performance. The aim of our study was to evaluate the impact of cognitive-behavioral group therapy on reducing perceived body image stress and improving cognitive flexibility among women with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Methods: In this research, 24 women referred to rheumatology clinics in Mashhad between the years 2015 and 2016 were selected and randomly assigned into two experimental (cognitive-behavioral group therapy) and control groups. Before and after interventions, Body Image Concern Inventory (BICI), Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI), Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) and Clinical Global Improvement Scale (CGI) were filled out for both groups. The data was analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) in SPSS-19 software with the significance level of 0.05. Further, percentages of improvement were calculated.

Results: Cognitive-behavioral group therapy compared to the control group led to a significant reduction in body image concern, and improvement of cognitive flexibility (P<0.001). The level of treatment satisfaction and overall improvement were significantly higher in intervention group and the improvement in all the research variables were more than those of the subjects in the control group (P<0.001).