Abstract :
Background & Objectives: Individuals living with musculoskeletal pain experience functional disability leading to distress in emotional, social, and financial aspects of their life. Being unable to forgive has been identified as an important risk factor for musculoskeletal pain. Research indicates that anger acts as a mediator in the association between inability to forgive and pain related outcomes. Present study aimed to indigenously adopt Enright’s model of forgiveness and to find out its efficacy in improving forgiveness as well as reducing anger and pain among individuals having musculoskeletal pain in Pakistan.
Methods: This study comprised of two phases. The first phase consisted of integrating Enright’s process model of forgiveness with an indigenous model grounded in Islamic teachings. The second phase was the main study; it was a quasi-experimental research in which, participants received the intervention via religiously integrated model of forgiveness therapy. Initially 30 individuals were recruited for both treatment and control group.
Results: Statistics from paired sample t-test indicated that after the intervention, comprising of 12 sessions completed in 9 week, participants reported decrease in the intensity of anger and pain. There was a significant reduction in anger and pain from pre-test to post-test measures as compared to the control group.
Conclusion: It was concluded that the religiously integrated model of forgiveness therapy was effective for reducing anger and pain among individuals with musculoskeletal pain.