The effect of cognitive therapy based on mindfulness on perceived stress, psychological capitals and emotional processing in women with breast cancer

 Regarding the high prevalence of breast cancer and necessity of appropriate psychological intervention in these patients, this research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on perceived stress, psychological capital and emotional processing in women with breast cancer.

The population of this clinical trial was all women with breast cancer in Tehran in 2018 referred to the treatment centers of these patients. The sample size was thirty women with breast cancer who were selected by convenient sampling method and randomly assigned into experimental and control groups (n=15). The Mindfulness Cognitive Therapy Program conducted on the experimental group in eight weekly ninety-minute sessions. They fulfilled Perception Stress Scale (Cohen et al.), Psychological Capital Inventory (Lutanz et al.) and Emotional Information Processing Questionnaire (Barker et al.) in pre-test, post-test and follow-up. Data analyzed by descriptive statistics and repeated variance analysis through SPSS software.

The comparison of the scores in two groups showed that cognitive therapy based on mindfulness was effective on perceived stress (F=22.11, P= 0.0001), psychological capitals (F=165.54, P= 0.0001) and emotional processing (F=18.7, P= 0.0001). The follow-up phase also indicated that the effectiveness of intervention was persistent.

Overall, the results showed that the cognitive therapy based on mindfulness reduced the perceived stress and the emotional processing and increased their psychological capital in women with breast cancer. So, it is suggested to use this therapeutic approach in clinics and hospitals to reduce perceived stress and improve psychological capitals and emotional processing in cancer patients.