The Effectiveness of Positive Psychotherapy on Depression and Anxiety in Patients with Huntington’s Chorea
Keywords:
Positive psychotherapy, emotion regulation, anxiety, Huntington’s diseaseAbstract
This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of positive psychotherapy on emotion regulation and anxiety in patients with Huntington’s chorea. The present research was an applied study using an experimental design with a pretest–posttest–follow-up format and a control group. The statistical population included all individuals with Huntington’s disease who attended Rasoul Akram Hospital in Tehran in 2020. The sampling method was population-matched sampling. Twenty patients with Huntington’s disease were randomly assigned to the positive psychotherapy experimental group (n = 10) and the control group (n = 10). A pretest was administered to all participants. Then, the positive psychotherapy intervention was delivered online once a week (six 90-minute sessions), while the control group received no treatment. After the intervention, a posttest was conducted for all participants, and one month later the tests were administered again to assess the durability of treatment effects (follow-up stage). Positive psychotherapy, based on the positive psychology approach, was developed by Seligman, Rashid, and Parks (2006). This intervention was conducted in six sessions over six weeks (one session per week), with each session lasting 60 minutes. The results showed that the effect size of group membership for depression was 0.612 at the posttest stage and 0.391 at the follow-up stage, indicating that group membership explained 0.612 of the variance in depression score changes at posttest and 0.391 of the variance at follow-up. In other words, the treatment approach led to an improvement of 0.612 in depression at posttest and 0.391 at follow-up. In addition, the effect size of group membership for anxiety was 0.587 at posttest and 0.521 at follow-up, indicating that group membership explained 0.587 of the variance in anxiety score changes at posttest and 0.521 at follow-up. In other words, the treatment approach led to an improvement of 0.587 in anxiety at posttest and 0.521 at follow-up. It can be concluded that positive psychotherapy is effective for depression and anxiety in patients with Huntington’s chorea and results in a significant reduction in depression and anxiety in these patients.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Fatemeh Mousavi (Author); Parviz Asgari; Naser Seraj Khorami (Author)
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