The effectiveness of cognitive-behavior therapy group on executive functions of individuals depended to drugs Download PDF

Purpose: drug dependency causes hurts to cognitive performance including problem solution,planning, organizing, subjective abilities of visual-spatial, cognitive flexibility, and memory skills. So the study mainly aimed to explore the effectiveness of cognitive-behavior therapy group on executive functions of individuals depended to drugs. Method: in a semi-experimental plan and by pretests-posttests with control group,34 available patients were selected under methadone maintenance therapy and randomly divided into two groups of intervention and control with 17 patients. Then intervention group was participated in cognitive- behavior therapy group for nine sessions. Executive function scores were collected in both groups with London Tower test, subtests of Wechsler Digit Span,Wisconsin cards classification in two steps, before the sessions started and after the sessions finished, and they were analyzed by independent T-test. Results: findings showed that there is significant difference in variables (flexibility, problem solution, conquest ability to repetition tendency andshirking, sketching time) of individuals with drug dependency before and after participation in behavior-cognitive therapy group sessions and MMT plan. And the difference is significant between control and intervention group (P>0/05). But there is no significant difference in variables( numbers of classification, reverse digit repetition and execution time) of behavior-cognitive therapy group in post-test than pre-test. Conclusion: behavior-cognitive therapy group can be effective to promote executive function scores but for more significant effects, factors including widespread volume sample and pursuit periods are needed to consider.