Compassion-Focused Therapy on Levels of Anxiety and Depression Among Women with Breast Cancer; A Randomized Pilot Trial
Open accessAbstract
Background: Compassion can help people regulate their emotional responses to cancer-induced bodily changes. However, compassion effects on levels of anxiety and depression among breast cancer patients is largely unknown. Objectives: The present study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of compassion-focused interventions on anxiety and depression levels among patients with breast cancer in Ahvaz, Iran. Methods: This study was a randomized controlled trial with pre- and post-tests. Respondent-driven sampling was used to sample from women, who visited clinical oncology ward in Golestan Hospital in Ahvaz. The primary sample consisted of 30 patients with breast cancer. They, then, were randomly allocated to two experimental and control groups. Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) was provided to the experimental group for 8 weeks, and the control group only received motivational enhancement therapy (MET). The data were analyzed in two stages of pre- and post-test, using Chi-square test and covariance analysis through SPSS software. Results: After adjusting for pre-test scores, the primary outcomes showed that compassion-focused interventions had a significant effect on the reduction of depression symptoms; also, secondary outcomes showed that this intervention was associated with a significant decrease in anxiety levels (all < 0.001). However, according to the findings, the interventions had greater positive impacts on the anxiety levels. Conclusions: These findings can confirm the efficacy of psychological interventions in patients with cancer in planning future interventions and linking medical and psychiatric therapies.
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Self-compassion is a crucial factor in reducing anxiety among medical staff.
“Self-compassion is another crucial factor in reducing anxiety among medical staff (10).”
From Effects of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Resiliency, Self-Compassion, and Corona Disease Anxiety on Medical Staff Involved in COVID-19 Pandemic (2023) · cites this paper as [10]
The Discussion (page not provided) reports that compassion-focused therapy reduced anxiety among women with breast cancer, and the Results report a significant effect on anxiety. The study did not examine medical staff, so it does not support applying that finding to them. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Haj Sadeghi, Z., Yazdi-Ravandi, S., & Pirnia, B.
- Affiliations
- University of Science and Culture (IR)
- ORCID
- Pirnia, Bijan
- Venue
- International Journal of Cancer Management
- Publisher
- Brieflands
- Published
- 2018-10-24
- Volume
- In Press
- Issue
- In Press
- ISSN
- 2538-4422 (ISSN-L)
- 2538-497X
- OpenAlex
- W2898201010
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 1.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- International Journal of Cancer Management (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer survivorship and care
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- compassion-focused therapy, breast cancer, anxiety, depression, motivational enhancement therapy, psychological intervention, women with cancer, emotion regulation
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