Effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Therapy on the Self care and Compassion Fatigue in Mothers with Cancer Child

The occurrence of  particular  diseases, such  as cancer in children, causes severe damage to  the mental health of  mothers. This research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of compassion-focused  therapy on self-care and compassion  fatigue in mothers  of  children  with  cancer.

The research method was quasi-experimental with a pretest,  post-test, control group, and  45-day follow-up design. The sample size in the study was 25 mothers  of  children  with  cancer  who were selected from those referred to Omid Educational Therapeutic Center in Isfahan 2018  through a convenient sampling method and were randomly replaced into experimental and control groups (12 mothers  in  the  experimental and 13 mothers in the control group). The experimental group received eight ninety-minute compassion-therapy  intervention   sessions  over 75 days  once a week, while the control group didn't  receive any intervention during the study. The instruments research included a self-care questionnaire (Galina et al., 2015)  and  a   professional  life  quality questionnaire (Stam, 2005).

The results of ANCOVA showed that compassion-focused therapy influenced self-care and compassion  fatigue  in  the mothers of children with cancer in post-test and follow-up significantly (p<0.001).

Based on the present research findings, compassion-focused therapy is suggested to be an effective method to improve self-care and reduce compassion  fatigue  in  mothers of  children with cancer