efficacy of emotion focused therapy on quality of life and sleep in irritable bowel syndrome

background : this research aimed to determine the efficacy of emotion focused therapy on quality of life and sleep problems of ibs patients. materials and methods : in this research 52 ibs patients who  met this diagnosis, according the rome ii criteria, were selected and assigned to two experimental and control groups with 26 ibs patients in each group. the emotion focused therapy according greenberg s manual- was conducted in 8 weekly sessions in the clinic of gastroenterology in isfahan. the questionnaires of quality of life and sleep problems were completed as the pretest, post-test and follow-up. results : results of multivariate analysis of variance s shows  that emotion focused therapy has been significant effect in reduction of post-test mean scores of quality of life, beginning of sleep and wake-up and follow-up mean scores of wake-up ( p <0.05). conclusion : emotion focused therapy could be useful to improvement of psychological status of ibs patients, but it seems to needs to probing more emotional experiences for more persistent effects.