Effect of Implementing Domestic Truth-telling Protocol on Stress, Anxiety, and Depression in Cancer Patients

The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of implementing domestic truth-telling protocol on stress, anxiety, and depression in cancer patients.

In this study, a semi-experimental design was used to examine the effect of truth-telling protocol implementation on psychological factors (i.e., stress, anxiety, and depression) in cancer patients. A total of 60 cancer patients participated in this study, 30 of them in the intervention group (who informed their disease with truth-telling protocol) and 30 others in the control group (who informed their disease with usual way and without protocol). Patients’ psychological factors were compared in intervention and control groups, three and eight weeks after the cancer disclosure by depression, anxiety, and stress scale-21.

In this study, except higher stress level of patients in intervention compared to the control group, no statistically significant difference was seen in other variables three weeks after cancer disclosure (P=0.046, Z= -1.99). Eight weeks after the intervention, all variables were significantly lower in the intervention group (P=0.000, Z=-5.864; P= 0.000, Z=-0.651; P=0.000, Z=-5.351).

Exercising truth-telling practice through implementing a localized culture-based protocol, especially after passing the initial acute phase of hearing the bad news, can lead to improved psychological factors in cancer patients.