Cognitive-Behavioral and Systematic Desensitization Procedures in Reducing Stress and Anger in Caregivers for the Disabled

Twenty-six highly stressed family and community caregivers for people with a disability completed scales designed to assess perceived stress, state anger, and trait anger. They were randomly divided into three groups. Subjects in one group underwent stress-reduction training in a self-instructional procedure, subjects in the second group underwent stress-reduction training in systematic desensitization, and subjects in the third group were placed in a wait-list condition. Results showed that state anger and trait anger were correlated with perceived stress at pretreatment, and state anger was correlated with perceived stress at posttreatment and follow-up. Subjects in both the self-instructional and systematic desensitization groups showed a reduction in perceived stress. Subjects in the self-instructional training group also showed a decrease in trait anger. The wait-list group showed no significant change in perceived stress and anger.