Comparing the Effects of Transdiagnostic Intervention and Mindfulness-based Schema Therapy on Spiritual Distress in Women With Breast Cancer: A Clinical Trial

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women which can cause spiritual distress in them. This study aims to assess the effects of mindfulness-based schema therapy (MBST) and transdiagnostic intervention on spiritual distress of women with breast cancer.

This is a quasi-experimental study (Clinical trial) with a pre-test/post-test/ follow-up design using a control group. Participants were 41 women with breast cancer referred to Omid and Imam Reza hospitals in Mashhad, Iran during 2017-2020, who were selected using a convenience sampling method and randomly assigned into two experimental groups and one control group. For both experimental groups, the intervention was performed at ten weekly sessions. The used instrument was the Spiritual Distress Scale of Ku et al. Data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni post hoc test in SPSS software, version 25 software.

There was a significant difference in the mean scores of spiritual distress in the experimental groups compared to the control group in the post-test and follow-up phases (P<0.001). There was no significant difference between the effectiveness of transdiagnostic intervention and MBST in the post-test and follow-up phases (P>0.05).

Both transdiagnostic intervention and MBST can reduce the spiritual distress of women with breast cancer.