Application of Spiritual Intervention Protocol in Women with Breast Cancer: A Brief Report

Previous studies have revealed that many professionals are willing to use spiritual interventions in clinical settings; however, they have access to no standard guide for their implementation, evaluation, and upgrading. This study aimed to determine the role of the Spiritual Intervention Package (SIP) in altering the expression of serotonin and dopamine gene receptors, the serum levels of interleukin 10-interferon gamma and the necrosis factor of the alpha tumor, and blood cortisol levels, promoting general health, decreasing distress and sexual problems, and reinforcing empathy, marital satisfaction, and posttraumatic growth. To this end, this multi-axial research consisting of 10 independent studies (16-60 persons per group) was conducted and examined the effectiveness of SIP in a variety of clinical settings among women with breast cancer stages 1-3, who were visited at Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital during 2012-2017. The participants were selected using the purposive and voluntary sampling methods. The levels of IL4 and IFNγ, the percentage of T-CD, and 8 T-CD cells were assessed by flow cytometer. Moreover, general health, somatization, anxiety, social dysfunction, and depression; spiritual health, sexual problems, marital satisfaction, and posttraumatic growth were evaluated using standard questionnaires. The research showed the acceptable results for the implementation of SIP for concerned purposes. The effect size evaluation– a technique to compare the impacts of the SIP regardless of the sample size, and the squared ETA (R2) assessment showed that, on average, more than 70% of the observed changes in these studies were due to the application of spirituality intervention. The effect size for biological, psychological, and social measures revealed that SIP significantly improved the biological, psychological, and social status of patients with breast cancer.