The Effect of Combined Therapy of Spiritual-Cognitive Group Therapy on Death Anxiety in Patients with Cancer

The current study aims to examine the effectiveness of combined therapy of spiritual- cognitive group therapy on decreasing the death anxiety of patients with cancer who referred to cancer treatment centers of Kerman in 2012. To this aim after a clinical interview، 26 patients with cancer، referred to treatment centers، were selected using convenient sampling method. The study participants were randomly divided into two groups of control and experimental، each including 13 patients. Then، all 26 patients were scrutinized by Templar''s death anxiety questionnaire. The experimental group participated in eleven 2-hour sessions of spiritual-cognitive group therapy; however، the control group received no intervention therapy. At the end، a post-test was conducted on all individuals in the sample group (26 patients). After collecting the questionnaires، the gathered data was analyzed applying SPSS software along with covariance analysis (ANCOVA). The study results indicated that the combined therapy of spiritual- cognitive group therapy was significantly effective (p≤0/001) in reducing death anxiety of patients with cancer. The combined therapy of spiritual-cognitive group therapy can decrease the death anxiety in patients with cancer.