Effectiveness of the acceptance and commitment therapy on resilience and quality of life in patients with post-acute COVID-19 syndrome

Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) is defined as an ongoing symptomatic illness in patients who have recovered from their initial COVID-19 infection which causes long term respiratory problems, muscle atrophy, etc. So, the current research aimed to examine effectiveness of the acceptance and commitment therapy on resilience and health-related quality of life of PCS patients. The research deployed a quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-tests and 3-month follow-up with wait-list group. Thirty PCS patients from a specialized facility in Iran were recruited using available sampling method and were randomly assigned to either treatment or wait-list groups, each group 15 subjects. The subjects answered to Connor and Davidson's (2003) Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and the World Health Organization's (1995) Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). The posttest score of resilience in the treatment and wait-list groups were 19.6 and 14.47, respectively, and their follow-up scores were 17.13 and 14.55, respectively. Also, total score of HRQoL in the treatment and wait-list groups in the posttest were 65.07 and 55.73 and in the follow-up were 63.27 and 54.6, respectively. The results showed that there were significant differences in the posttest scores of the dependent variables based on the groups. Also, the MANCOVA showed that the acceptance and commitment therapy was still significantly effective on the dependent variables three months after the last session. The ACT can significantly increase PCS patients' resilience and HRQoL even 3 months after the intervention. The implications and limitations of the research are further discussed.