EFFECTIVENESS OF SPIRITUAL THERAPY ON THE LIFE QUALITY OF THE WOMEN WITH BREAST CANCER IN TEHRAN

Spirituality therapy means considering the cultural-religious beliefs of the people in the therapy process and considering the transcendental dimension of the clientele which guides them towards transcendental source. The importance of spirituality and spiritual growth in human is increasingly gaining the attention of psychologists and mental health specialists within the recent decades. The purpose of this research is determining the effectiveness of spiritual therapy on the life quality of the women with breast cancer in Tehran in 2016.
Material & In this study, quasi-experimental research and pretest-posttest plan id applied with control groups. The statistical population includes 30 patients with breast cancer who referred toSoleimanzadehSpecialized Clinic of Oncology and Chemotherapy in Tehran, who were selected with the convenience sampling method and were randomly divided into two groups of 15 as a control group and the other 15 persons as a test group. The test group went on spiritual intervention for 12 sessions of 60 minutes and the control group only got the chemotherapy without spiritual intervention. The shortened version of 1999 World Health Organization HRQL questionnaires were completed before and after the treatment period.
The questionnaire measures 4 areas including: physical health, mental health, social relations and environmental health.SPSS 19 software was usedat descriptive and inferential level to analyze the data. Covariance analysis method (ANCOVA) and multivariate covariance analysis (MANCOVA) were used to investigate the hypothesis.
Results of covariance analysis of life quality shows thatthe life quality score for women with breast cancer in the test groupis increased after applying the independent variable (spiritual therapy) and the difference with the control group was significant.
The results of Multivariate Covariance analysis of life quality subscale show that the average scoreof test group in three subscales (Physical health, psychological and social relationship health) in post-test is higher than in the control group ; and is statistically significant.There was no significant difference between the two groups in environmental health subscale.
According to the findings, it seems that spiritual intervention is effective in life quality of women affected with breast cancer. So, through training the spiritual therapy virtual actions could be taken to improve their life quality and their mental health.