Abstract

Introduction: Abortion has devastating effects on women physically and mentally. For example, abortion is considered a significant psychological stressors which causes mood disorders such as decreased self-esteem. Self-esteem and anxiety are significantly related to each other, so that high levels of self-esteem are associated with low levels of depression and anxiety. The "solution-focused anxiety management" is a counseling approach that combines psychological training on increasing self-esteem and other acceptance-based concepts with solution-focused, strategic, and cognitive-behavioral components. Methods: This study is a randomized parallel clinical trial with the participation of 84 women with a history of spontaneous abortion. The study population included women who had less than a week since their abortion and also had low self-esteem according to Rosenberg self-esteem tools. Subjects were divided into two groups of control (routine health care) and intervention (4-session solution-focused anxiety management counseling) based on random allocation sequence. Rosenberg demographic and self-esteem questionnaires were completed before and after the intervention and three months after the intervention in two groups. Data were analyzed using t-test, Chi-square (X2), Fisher's exact test, independent t-test and repeated measures. Significance level was P <0.05. Results: Compared to the control group, solution-focused anxiety management counseling significantly increased the self-esteem of women with a history of spontaneous abortion (p-value = 0.001). In general, the mean and standard deviation of women's self-esteem scores before and after the intervention were obtained as (2 2 ± - 2.62 and 3.19 ± -0.38) in the intervention group, and (2.4 ± 3.05 and 2.53 ± -2.48) in the control group, respectively. Conclusion: The Use of "solution-focused anxiety management" approach can increase the average self-esteem score of women with a history of abortion and increase their self-esteem. The results of this study showed that this intervention method can play an important role in psychological interventions after abortion.