The Effectiveness of Gottman Group Cognitive-Systemic Educational based Intervention on Quality of Life and Relationship Patterns in Patients with Breast Cancer and Their Partners

Breast cancer diagnosis presents significant distress for both patients and their partners. Decrease in quality of life and disruption of marital communication patterns are among the problems experienced by patients and their spouses following breast cancer diagnosis. Psychological interventions can be effective in reducing the problems related to cancer. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Gottman cognitive-systemic based intervention training on quality of life and relationship patterns in women with breast cancer and in their partners. This was a semi-experimental study with pre-test, post-test and control group. The subjects who entered the study were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups. Both groups responded to quality of life questionnaires of cancer patients and world health organization and also Gottman’s distance and isolation Questionnaire. Then, the experimental group participated in Gottman cognitive-systemic intervention training for eight sessions of two hours. After ending the training, post-test was performed and after three months, follow up test was performed on both experimental and control groups. Data were analysed using independent t-test and covariance. Data analysis indicated that mean and standard deviation of relationship pattern (21.20±6.6) and quality of life (67.22±11.79) in the experimental group after training were significantly different compared to the mean and standard deviation for relationship pattern (45.20±8.85) and quality of life (50.89±12.08) in control group. The results showed that cognitive-systemic intervention could be useful in improving cancer-related problems for patients and their partners. Also, this finding can helpful for health and family professionals who are in touch with patients and their families.