Effects of Emotion-focused Therapy (EFT) on Mood Awareness and Emotional Reactivity in Bipolar Patients Awareness and Emotional Reactivity

4.503 / 5.000 Bipolar disorder is a serious mood disorder that requires lifelong treatment and is characterized by recurring periods of depression, mania, hypomania or mixed episodes without a specific order, completely normal between episodes or thought to be with minimal symptom levels, has a high mortality and morbidity rate, causes serious deterioration in the quality of life in terms of occupational, interpersonal, social, familial and economic aspects. It causes serious deterioration in the lives of patients due to suicide attempts, substance abuse, poor functionality, low academic success, deterioration in interpersonal communication and repeated hospitalizations. One of the conditions that most affects the course of the disease in bipolar disorder and causes recurrences is treatment compliance. Treatment compliance includes individuals accepting and applying the treatments recommended for their illness, going to check-ups, controlling their emotions, continuing treatment programs, using medications as often and at the dose prescribed, continuing other treatment methods and healthy behavioral changes (individual coping strategies, skills training, emotion management training, awareness training, etc.). In bipolar patients, where mood swings are frequent, emotional reactivity is one of the important factors affecting the treatment compliance process. The concept of emotional reactivity can be defined as the emotional sensitivity experienced by the individual in response to many stimuli and stimuli, the emotional intensity experienced strongly, and the emotional resistance shown during the period until reaching the basic emotion. The emotions that usually create emotional reactions are emotions such as anger, anxiety, stress, and hurt. Even individuals without a psychiatric diagnosis can sometimes have difficulty controlling such emotions when they encounter them. Therefore, it is very important for these bipolar individuals to have mood awareness so that they can recognize these emotions and exhibit appropriate behaviors towards emotions. Since individuals who are aware of their emotions will increase their emotional attention and emotional clarity, it becomes easier for them to recognize their emotions. Patients' compliance with treatment positively affects the course of the disease and supports the increase in functionality with regular treatment. Psychosocial interventions for patients with bipolar disorder contribute to a decrease in patients' symptoms, increased compliance with medical treatment, and a decrease in the need for rehospitalization, as well as increased social and occupational functioning. This study was planned to examine the effects of emotion-focused therapy applied to patients with bipolar disorder on the patients' mood awareness and emotional reactivity. The application of the study will be carried out with patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder in remission at the Psychiatry Clinic of Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University Faculty of Medicine Hospital after obtaining permissions. In determining the hospital where the study will be conducted, the current number of patients, accessibility, cooperation of the team, and the absence of structured group emotion-focused therapy studies in the institution were taken into consideration. The content of the emotion-focused therapy program planned to be used in the study was prepared by obtaining the opinions of expert faculty members working in different universities. The study was planned with bipolar disorder patients who were hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic and started the treatment process, and in an experimental setting (pre-test-post-test control group, follow-up measurement), 6 sessions were planned for the intervention group during their hospitalization, 2 days a week, the first 3 sessions were 30 minutes and the other 3 sessions were 40 minutes. Before starting the emotion-focused therapy, the purpose of the study was explained to the intervention group, the data collection tools were introduced, and their verbal and written permissions were obtained, and the pre-test was applied face to face. Face-to-face interviews and 6 sessions of emotion-focused therapy application will be held in the psychiatric clinic interview room. As the final test application, the scales will be applied face to face by the clinic nurse immediately after the last session of emotion-focused therapy. A follow-up test will be performed on the patients one month later. The patient will be met with a total of 7 times. It is assumed that the emotion-focused therapy application will increase the patient's ability to recognize individual emotions, manage emotions, medication compliance and functionality level after discharge.