Association between Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) processes and depressive symptoms and pain interference in persons with spinal cord injury (SCI).

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE: To explore the extent to which Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) core processes are related to depressive symptoms and pain interference in a sample of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI).

RESEARCH METHOD/DESIGN: 159 individuals with an SCI completed self-report surveys of 6 core processes of ACT and of 2 quality-of-life indicators (Spinal Cord Injury-Quality of Life [SCI-QOL] Depressive Symptoms and Pain Interference). Hierarchical linear regressions were used to analyze the amount of variance in depressive symptom and pain interference accounted for by ACT as a comprehensive construct and each individual ACT component. Data were collected specifically to examine these research questions.

RESULTS

Analyses revealed that ACT as a unified construct accounted for a significant amount of variance in both criterion variables (range ΔR² = .29-.56; all s < .001). Pursuit of Values and Emotional Acceptance were significant independent predictors of depressive symptoms; Self-as-Context and Emotional Acceptance were significant independent predictors of pain interference.

CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS: Overall, these results demonstrate that ACT core processes account for moderate to large amounts of the variance in indicators of depressive symptoms and pain interference for individuals who have an SCI. Pursuit of values and acceptance had the greatest associations with depressive symptoms, whereas self as context and acceptance had the greatest associations with reported pain interference. These results highlight the potential for ACT core processes to be targeted in a treatment context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).