Comparing the Effectiveness of Mindfulness Therapy and Relaxation on Pain in Patients with Migraine

 Aims and background: Pain caused by chronic physical illnesses such as migraine headaches causes emotional and psychological damage to patients. according to this the present study was conducted aiming to Compare the effectiveness of mindfulness therapy and relaxation on pain in patients with migraine. Materials and Methods: The present study was quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest, control group and a two-month follow-up design. The statistical population of the study included the patients with migraine headache in the town of Shahin Shahr, Isfahan in the first quarter of 2019. 30 patients with migraine headache were selected through voluntary sampling method and they were randomly replaced into experimental and control groups (15 patients in mindfulness therapy groups, 15 patients in Relaxation therapy groups and 15 in control group). The experimental groups received 8 sessions of mindfulness therapy sessions of Kabatzin and 7 relaxation sessions of Ozkan and Rathfisch over two months in 90-minute sessions separately. The applied questionnaire in this study included Severity of pain questionnaire of Melzack. The data from the study were analyzed through repeated measurement ANOVA and Bonfrey’s follow-up test. Results: the results showed that mindfulness therapy and relaxation significantly influences Severity of pain in patients with migraine headache (p<0.001). In addition, the results of the follow-up test showed that there is a significant difference between two therapies in variable of pain (p<0.001) and relaxation therapy was more able to decrease the pain of migraine compared to mindfulness therapy. Conclusion: According to the findings of the present study it might be stated that Relaxation therapy, due to its focus on physiological processes such as massage, can be more effective than mindfulness therapy in reducing the severity of pain in patients with migraine headaches.