Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Management on Self-Differentiation and Fear of Disease Progression in Patients with Breast Cancer

Fear of disease progression and rejection of what happened and not being able to distinguish oneself from mental processes cause confusion in mental health. Since acceptance and commitment therapy emphasizes on modification of dysfunctional processes such as avoidance and fusion and their change to acceptance and commitment, the present study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on self-differentiation and fear of disease progression in patients with breast cancer.

This clinical trial was performed on 30 patients referred to the Touba Oncology Center in Sari, who were randomly divided into two groups of experiment and control (n= 15). The treatment was performed in eight 90-minute sessions in the experimental group. Participants were assessed and compared based on questionnaire of self-differentiation and fear of disease progression before the experiment and two months after that.

The results showed that fear of disease progression in the pre-test compared to the post-test decreased in the experimental group (135.11±4.27 versus 126.05±3.12) and in the follow-up period, this decease continued in the experimental group (125.32±3.05) (p< 0.05). In addition, the mean score of self-differentiation in pre-test compared to post-test increased (67.12±12.5 versus 77.17±4.51) and this increase continued in the follow-up period (75.4±3.34)
(p< 0.05).

The results of the study showed that acceptance and commitment therapy management could be effective in increasing self-differentiation and reducing the fear of disease progression in breast cancer patients.