The Effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Therapy on Drug Beliefs and Addiction Memory in Opioid Addicts Undergoing Methadone Maintenance Treatment

Zarei, Sahar; Jabal Ameli, Sheida; Moghimian, Maryam; Nikyar, Hamidreza

doi:10.22059/japr.2026.361454.644664

The Effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Therapy on Drug Beliefs and Addiction Memory in Opioid Addicts Undergoing Methadone Maintenance Treatment

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

sahar zarei ¹

sheida jabal ameli ²

maryam moghimian ³

hamidreza nikyar ³

¹ PhD student, Department of Health Psychology, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran.

² Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran.

³ Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran.

10.22059/japr.2026.361454.644664

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate the the effectiveness of compassion-focused therapy on drug beliefs and addiction memory in opioid addicts undergoing methadone maintenance treatment. In terms of the objective, this research was of an applied type and in terms of the method of conducting the research, it was a semi-experimental design with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group and a 2-month follow-up period. The statistical population of this research included opiate addicts undergoing maintenance treatment with methadone in Bushehr city in the second six months of 2021. In this research, 29 drug addicts were selected using the available sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (15 people in the experimental group and 14 people in the control group). The people in the experimental group received compassion-focused therapy during 12 weeks in 12 sessions of 90 minutes. The applied questionnaire included Drug Beliefs Questionnaire (DBQ), and Addiction Memory Scale (AMS). The data from the study were analyzed through mixed analysis of Variance and post hoc Bonferroni test via SPSS23 software. The results showed that compassion-focused therapy has significant effect on the drug beliefs and addiction memory in opioid addicts undergoing methadone maintenance treatment.

Keywords

Compassion-focused therapy

drug beliefs

addiction memory

opioid addicts