The effectiveness of hope- based group psychotherapy on the promotion of health related quality of life in patients with cancer

Hope is amongst the important factors and is an essential element in patients with cancer, which has many effects on their compatibility with life conditions, especially in suffering and disappointing periods. Hope has a significant role in increasing the quality of life and effects different stages of the disease. The aim of this research was to study the effectiveness of promoting interventions of hope in patients with cancer. This clinical trial study carried out on 30 cancer patients in Shafa hospital of Ahvaz city in 2012. The health- related quality of life questionnaire was used and completed both before and after the intervention for both the case and control groups (each group consisted of 15 patients). The hope promoting intervention for patients in the case group was a face-to-face method and was conducted by the PBL method. The results were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance. The data analysis showed that there was a significant difference between post-test scores of both training and control groups (p<0.01) and hope- based group psychotherapy has caused promoting health- related quality of life in the case group. The hope promoting interventions were effective in increasing hope in cancer patients. So, for cancer patients, increasing the quality of life, giving educational services, and hope promoting programs are needed, which should be accomplished by suitable methods, for instance, PBL or by patients active participation in the programming process.