Effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy based intervention program (ACTP) on perceived stress and emotion regulation among alcoholics in Kerala, India

Pages:10-18
Betcy George and RosalitoG de Guzman (The Graduate School, University of Santo Tomas, Department of Psychology, España, Manila, Philippines)

Alcoholism is the devastating fatal disease negatively affects the individual, family and society at large. It is progressive and harmful that dominates thinking and emotions of the alcoholic and produces severe consequences on physical and psychological well-being. Stress and disregulation of emotions is the important contributing factor of addiction and relapse susceptibility. Growing evidence suggests perceived stress, emotion regulation underlie clinically relevant behaviors and psychological difficulties among the alcoholics. In response to these problems researcher incorporates a focuseson reducing perceived stress, difficulties in emotion regulation developed an intervention program based on acceptance and commitment strategy along with mindfulness. The study has two phases; ACTP program development and assessment of the effectiveness program in reducing perceived stress and emotion regulation difficulty thereby total abstinence and replacement of addictive pattern of behavior through experimental methods.Total32 alcohol dependence randomly assigned to control and experimental situation. Two scales perceived stress (PSS-14) and difficulties in emotion regulation (DERS) were administered. The mean, paired sample t-test, MANOVA and Cohen’s d were utilized for data analysis. The null hypothesis tested at 0.05 level of significant. Pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group showed significant difference (P=0.00) that revealed the effectiveness of ACTP program.