The Comparison of the Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Spirituality Therapy in Reducing Anxiety in Women with Breast Cancer

The experience of anxiety as a bad experience creates a different behavioral, cognitive, and emotional response that preserves annoying thoughts and inefficient beliefs. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and spirituality therapy in reducing anxiety in women with breast cancer in Tehran.

This was a pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental design research with a control group and a three-month follow-up. The statistical population comprised women with breast cancer visiting the Gynecological Ultra-Specialized Cancer Center of Khatam-al-Anbya Hospital in Tehran in 2021. In total, 45 women with breast cancer were selected and randomly divided into two experimental groups and one control group (n=15). The first and second experimental groups underwent eight 60-minute sessions of ACT and eight 60-minute sessions of spiritual therapy, respectively. The research instruments included the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ). The collected data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA.

The results showed that ACT and spiritual therapy significantly reduced generalized anxiety scores in the experimental groups compared to the control group (P<0.01). Moreover, the absence of anxiety significantly increased in the two experimental groups that underwent ACT and spirituality therapy compared to the control group (P<0.01). However, ACT and spirituality therapy did not differ significantly in their effects on the dependent variables.

This study achieved promising results concerning the applicability of ACT and spirituality therapy in reducing anxiety in women with breast cancer. Based on the results, holding ACT and spirituality therapy workshops may exert beneficial effects on reducing anxiety in women with breast cancer