The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Reducing the Severity of Perceived Pain in Women with Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent and painful cancers amongst women in the world. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on reducing the severity of pain in women with breast cancer. This was a quasi-experimental study which was conducted on 30 women with breast cancer referring to Ilam Medical Center in 2018. Patients were randomly assigned into two groups of experimental and control groups. Participants in the pre-test stage completed the multivariate questionnaire for the West Haven-Yale. At the next stage, the experimental group participants were exposed to 8 sessions of acceptance and commitment therapy while the control group did not receive any special treatment. Both groups completed the same questionnaire again at the posttest stage. In terms of severity pain, mean scores of the experimental and control groups at the pretest stage were 76.66 and 74.98, respectively. Meanwhile, mean scores of the mentioned groups at the posttest stage were 70.08 and 74.06. The mean score of the experimental group in the posttest phase was decreased after the intervention compared to the control group. The results of the study reveal that acceptance and commitment therapy is a suitable intervention model for reducing the severity of perceived pain in breast cancer patients.