Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Body Image in Women with Breast Cancer after Mastectomy Surgery

In recent years, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been widely used, with an emphasis on accepting problems as an integral part of human life and increasing psychological flexibility. In this regard, the current study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on the body image of women with breast cancer after mastectomy surgery.

This study was a quasi-experimental study with pre-test and posttest design with the experimental and control groups. The study population consisted of 26 patients who were selected by purposeful sampling from "Alla Charity Center" in Isfahan in 2015 and were randomly assigned to two groups of 13 cases. The experimental group received ACT in 8 one-hour weekly sessions. The Multidimensional Personality Attitude Questionnaire (1990) was completed by both experimental and control groups in the pretest and post-test stages. The obtained results were analyzed in SPSS software.

The results of covariance analysis revealed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of body image and its dimensions in the experimental and control groups. Moreover, it was found that ACT was effective in the improvement of body image in patients of the experimental group (P<0.05).

As evidenced by the obtained results, the ACT can be of great help in the alleviation of psychological problems in women with breast cancer.