The effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on psychological flexibility and cognitive emotion regulation in women with breast cancer

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on psychological flexibility and cognitive emotion regulation in women with breast cancer.

Method was quasi-experimental with control group, pre-test, post-test and one-month follow-up, and the statistical population was 390 women with breast cancer of Shahid Rajaie Hospital in Karaj in 2018. 30 patients who were referred to the chemotherapy department were selected by convenience sampling method and were assigned to two experimental and control groups. The research tools were Hayes, Strosahl, Wilson, Bissett, Pistorello, et al (2004) The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ), and Garnefski, Kraaij & Spinhoven (2001) Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) and Hayes, Strosahl and Wilson's Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Program (1999) was extracted from Esmat Danesh’s training course in Iran Psychology Association in 2015 which was performed once a week at 8 sessions with duration of 90 minutes for experimental group. Data were analyzed using mixed varience repeated measure.

The results showed the effectivity of therapeutic implementation on psychological flexibility (F= 6.78, P=0.016) and for all the dimensions of cognitive emotion regulation including acceptance (F= 25.09), positive refocusing (F=34.02), refocusing on planning (F=17.80), positive reappraisal (F=23.44), putting perspective (F=13.06), self-blame (F=14.09), rumination (F=15.45), catastrophizing (F=34.82) and other blame (F=16.63) at P=0.001 level and therapeutic achievements remained stable at follow-up.

Because acceptance and commitment therapy leads to psychological flexibility and commitment of the individual to perform actions that make a full, rich, and meaningful life, it can be used as an effective interventional method for enhancing psychological changes and emotion regulation in patients with breast cancer and other patients.