Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for people with type 2 Diabetes: a Systematic Review

Abstract

A significant amount of empirical studies Applied the ACT to people with diabetes type 2, but that gathered this evidences are scarce. This systematic review of the literature aims to synthesize and analyze interventions, outcome variables and the result of studies that applied the ACT to people with diabetes type 2. The research of the articles was realized between December 2022 and January 2023, in the databases PubMed, Lilacs and Google Academico, using the descriptors “acceptance and commitment therapy” AND “self-care” AND “diabetes mellitus”. Were selected 16 articles with face-to-face application for adults, inclusion of control group and/or other treatment and inferential statistical analyzes in the comparisons between the groups. The ACT interventions were group-delivered, included diabetes educational components, and the most cited a base reference for non-specific diabetes intervention. The main outcome variable were self-care, life’s quality, glycated hemoglobin and treatment adoption. The ACT was more effective in self-care, glycated hemoglobin and in the other evaluated measures in comparison with the control group and other treatment, with results sustained in follow-up evaluations. These evidences may encourage more studies of ACT for type 2 diabetes in Brazil