The Effect of self- Healing Training on Stress, Death Anxiety and Depression in Breast Cancer Patients

Considering the psychological effects of cancer such as stress, death anxiety and depression, the use of psychological treatment is very important in reducing the psychological problems of breast cancer. The purpose of this study was to determine the effective training of self-healing on stress, death anxiety, and depression, in breast cancer patients.

The present quasi-experimental study design with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up design with experimental and control groups. The statistical population of the study included all females with breast cancer in the year 1396-98 referring to seyedshohada hospital in Isfahan city, among 28 selected by the available sampling and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. (14 people in each group). For the experimental group, the self-healing program was performed in 12 sessions per week for 90 minutes per session. Data was collected through cohenchr('39')s Perceived Stress questionnaire (1983), the temple Death Anxiety Scale (1970), and the beck depression Inventory-2(1988) before, after, and two months after the intervention and analyzed by variance analysis test with repeated measures and Bonferroni post hoc.

After performing the self-healing program, the mean stress death anxiety and depression in the experimental group decreased from (31/71,12/71,29/79) to (22/43,5/0,17/0), with indicated a significant reduction in stress, death anxiety and depression(p<0/01) while the control group had no significant difference before (30/71,12/29,27/86) and after (29/21,10/71,31/7) the intervention(p>0/01). There was a significant difference between the control group and the experimental group in all three variables in the post-test and follow-up stages (p<0/01). 

The finding of this study showed that the stress, death anxiety, and depression decreased, meaning that the self-healing training program was effective for the stress, death anxiety, and depression of breast cancer. Therefore, this method can be used to reduce the psychological programs in breast cancer and other chronic diseases.